Jay Waxenberg

Jay D. Waxenberg is a partner in our Private Client Services Department and a former Chair. He advises on all aspects of multi-generational wealth planning and has particular expertise in complex estate planning, related tax work and the administration of estates and trusts.

As a member of our Fiduciary Litigation Group, Jay is regularly involved in will contests and other estate- and trust-related litigations. He is a member of the Firm’s Executive Committee.

Jay has extensive experience working with high-net worth individuals and their estates and has assisted clients, often for many years, in the structuring of their estate plans so as to minimize gift, estate and generation-skipping taxes in the transmission of their wealth through several generations.

Lauded by his clients as “an all-star private client lawyer” who is “very focused on client service,” he is involved in the full range of his clients’ economic and personal concerns, including closely held businesses, commercial and residential real estate holdings, artistic collections and philanthropy.

Jay has helped his clients structure new business ventures, restructure existing ventures with an emphasis on shifting appreciation potential to younger generations, and has guided the sale and liquidation of businesses.

He regularly handles family matters, such as the preparation of prenuptial and postnuptial agreements, counsels on charitable giving and structures plans to enable client’s businesses to remain intact at their death, and to ensure the desired continuity of ownership and control.

Jay lectures regularly on estate planning topics and has written numerous articles that have appeared in various legal publications. He is a Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel. Jay is a former Chair of the Estate and Gift Tax Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. He serves on the professional advisory committees of a number of museums and hospitals in New York.

Education :

• New York University School of Law, LL.M., 1987, (Taxation)
• Boston University School of Law, J.D., 1981
• State University of New York at Stony Brook, B.A., 1978

Admissions & Qualifications : New York

Court Admissions : U.S. Tax Court

Memberships :

• American Bar Association
• New York City Bar (Council on Taxation, Past Chair of Estate and Gift Taxation Committee, Past Member of Committee on Trusts, Estates and Surrogate’s Courts)
• UJA-Federation of New York (Former Chair and Vice Chair of Trusts and Estates Lawyers Group)
• Columbia University Health Sciences Professional Advisors Circle
• Museum of Arts & Design Professional Advisory Committee
• New York-Presbyterian Hospital Planned Giving Advisory Council
• Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center Trust and Estate Advisory Committee