Jennifer serves as a high net worth family counselor with knowledge and understanding of sophisticated estate planning techniques and the broader needs of high net worth families.

Her strength lies in communicating complex matters in plain terms and working collaboratively as part of an advisor team to provide practical counsel to multigenerational families consistent with their risk tolerance, goals, family dynamics, and desire for complexity.

Practice Areas

  • Counseling families in the design of wills, trusts and other personal planning documents
  • Developing complex strategies to minimize transfer taxes for high net worth families while achieving family goals, including extensive experience with sophisticated planning techniques including GRATs, generation skipping strategies, sales to defective trusts, limited partnerships, life insurance planning and charitable strategies
  • Advising as to retirement arrangements, lifetime dispositions, and estate, gift, income and generation skipping transfer taxes
  • Succession planning for closely held and emerging businesses, as well as for executives and former executives of publicly traded companies
  • Planning for charitable gifts, including the design of pledges and charitable funds
  • Estate and trust administration
  • Serving as trustee for trusts ranging from minimally funded insurance trusts to significantly funded active discretionary trusts, including maintaining communications and relationships with beneficiaries and grantors, investment policy statement review and process, and discretionary distribution decisions

Education

  • Case Western Reserve University School of Law, J.D., cum laude, 1990
  • Rice University, B.A., cum laude, 1987

Admissions & Associations

  • State of Ohio
  • Ohio State Bar Association, Member
  • Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association, Member
    • Estate Planning, Probate and Trust Law Section
  • The American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC), Fellow
  • Estate Planning Institute, Member 
    • Chairman, 2005
  • Estate Planning Council of Cleveland, Member
    • Programming Committee Chair, 2010-2011
    • Treasurer, 2011-2012, Secretary, 2012-2013
    • Vice President, 2013-2014, President, 2014-2015

Awards & Honors

  • Accredited Estate Planner® - National Association of Estate Planners & Councils
  • Top Rated Lawyers™, Presented by Martindale-Hubbell
  • Martindale-Hubbell® AV Preeminent®   
  • Recognized in The Best Lawyers in America® since 2014 for Practice Areas:
    • Closely Held Companies and Family Businesses Law
    • Trusts and Estates
  • Named "Lawyer of the Year" by Best Lawyers® for:
    • Closely Held Companies and Family Businesses Law, Cleveland 2023
    • Trusts and Estates, Cleveland 2019
    • Closely Held Companies and Family Businesses Law, Cleveland 2018
  • Chambers High Net Worth: Private Wealth Law, 2020-present
  • Selected to the Ohio Super Lawyers® list: 2012-present
    • Top 50: Women Ohio Super Lawyers list: 2024
    • Top 25: Women Cleveland Super Lawyers list: 2024
  • University Hospitals 2022 Distinguished Advisor Award

Articles & Presentations

  • The Inside Scoop on Choosing an Estate Planning Lawyer, Crain's Cleveland Business, Estate Planning, 2020
  • Now is The Time to Tackle Estate Planning, Crain's Cleveland Business, Estate Planning, 2014