Molly James

Molly F. James advises on a full range of estate planning, offering clients straightforward, comprehensive solutions to complex issues. She implements all aspects of a plan with clear explanations and follow-up to enable clients to reach their family and financial goals.

For more than 20 years, Molly has represented families with both simple and complicated family and financial circumstances. Clients include business owners, professionals, executives, venture capital and real estate investors, and multigenerational families.

As a family advisor, in addition to wills, revocable trusts, powers of attorney and advance medical directives, Molly prepares dynasty trusts (generation-skipping trusts, or GSTs), premarital agreements, grantor-retained annuity trusts (GRATs), charitable remainder unitrusts or annuity trusts (CRUTs and CRATs), charitable lead trusts (CLTs), private foundation governance documents, limited liability company (LLC) agreements, irrevocable life insurance trusts (ILITs), special-needs trusts, business succession plans, trusts for the transfer of carried interests or other business interests, trusts for asset protection, and other structures to protect assets from taxes, creditors, divorcing spouses, and beneficiaries with spendthrift or other financial management concerns. Molly also addresses international estate planning aspects for clients with connections to foreign jurisdictions.

At the hardest times, when there is a death in the family, Molly guides clients through the estate administration process, with compassionate understanding and clear instructions regarding the logistics involved when the estate plan takes effect.

Representative Matters :

• Developing and implementing a strategy to pass closely held businesses, worth more than $100 million, to trusts for a family over a period of years to substantially minimize estate tax.
• Drafted grantor retained annuity trusts for the stock of an executive’s publicly traded company, and obtained appropriate securities advice for the client.
• Worked with venture capitalists to transfer carried interests to trusts for the benefit of family members.
• Drafted private foundation and charitable lead annuity trusts for clients in a short time frame to ensure end-of-year income tax benefits.
• Conducted deathbed planning for a client designed to reduce the estate tax value of his assets and obtain income tax benefits that could have been lost at death.

Professional and Community Involvement :

• Pro Bono Legal Counsel, College Bound Inc., Washington, D.C.
• Pro Bono Legal Counsel, Jane Goodall Institute, Vienna, Virginia

EDUCATION :

• Georgetown University Law Center, J.D., magna cum laude, Order of the Coif, 1992
• Tufts University, B.A., magna cum laude, 1989

BAR ADMISSIONS : Virginia, District of Columbia