Private Client Partner Julie Kwon rejoins MWE
International law firm McDermott Will & Emery has announced that Julie K. Kwon has rejoined the Firm as partner based in the Silicon Valley office. Ms. Kwon focuses her practice on advising clients regarding a broad range of estate planning issues, including estate, gift and generation-skipping transfer tax issues; charitable planning and exempt organization compliance; trust and estate administration; contested trust and tax matters; and construction and reformation of wills and trusts.
“Julie is a significant addition to our Private Client Practice Group and will work closely with both our U.S. team as well as our international partners, including Martyn Gowar and Andrew Vergunst, both of whom launched our London private client team last year,” commented Carol A. Harrington, head of the Firm’s Private Client Practice Group. “We’re delighted to welcome her back to the Firm.”
McDermott’s Private Client Practice Group is one of the largest and best-known departments of its kind in the United States. Consecutive editions of Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business ranked the Firm’s wealth management practice in the top tier nationwide. The Firm represents families and individuals, family offices, closely held businesses, foundations, estates, trusts and special purpose asset transfer and investment management entities in the United States and throughout the world, and provides to them a spectrum of estate, succession, gift transfer and wealth planning services. McDermott’s experience covers all significant facets of wealth planning.
“I am extremely gratified to return to McDermott’s preeminent team of private client attorneys as the Firm continues to expand the breadth and depth of our international practice. I am confident that my experience in advising families through my diverse roles at fiduciary, investment and charitable institutions will enhance our capabilities to serve our clients’ unique needs.”
Most recently, Ms. Kwon was the Philanthropic Advisor for Stanford University, where she collaborated with donors regarding their charitable planning and resolved legal issues arising from charitable trust investments, complex gifts and endowment management. Ms. Kwon also served as a Director in the Wealth Management Group of Bernstein Global Wealth Management, developing quantitative research regarding the effect of investment volatility on wealth transfer, and was the fiduciary counsel and Legacy Planner for the Midwest Region for Bessemer Trust Company.
She is a frequent speaker and author on estate planning topics for professional organizations and publications, which have included Journal of Taxation and Trusts & Estates magazines, the Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning, the Internal Revenue Service, the American Bar Association, the American Law Institute – American Bar Association, and numerous regional organizations around the United States.
Julie currently is chair of the Income & Transfer Planning Group of the American Bar Association, Real Property, Trust & Estate Section. In addition, she is the past chair of the Estate & Gift Tax Committee and past co-chair of the GST Tax Committee of the Section. Julie currently is on the Estate Planning Advisory Panel of the American Law Institute-American Bar Association, and is a member of the Northern California Planned Giving Council. She is a former director and board member of the Chicago Estate Planning Council and a former member of the Professional Advisory Council of the Chicago Community Trust.
Ms. Kwon is admitted to practice in California and Illinois. She received her B.A., with distinction, from Stanford University, and her J.D. from Yale Law School, where she was the executive editor of the Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities.