Duane Morris LLP has named New York partner Amy J. Guss as chair of the firm’s Private Client Services Practice Group and Philadelphia partner David S. Kovsky as vice chair. Guss, who previously served as vice chair of the group, succeeds New York partner Michael D. Grohman. Grohman served as chair since 2008 and will continue practicing as a partner in the group.
“Our Private Client Services Practice Group continues to expand and is increasingly sought-after by clients who want to invest and protect their resources in new ways,” said Duane Morris Chairman and CEO Matthew A. Taylor. “That is due in large part to Michael’s creative thinking over the past 15 years and Amy and Michael’s combined efforts the past three years. Since Amy joined us in 2020 through our firm’s merger with Satterlee Stephens LLP, she has provided the group with innovative leadership that we know will continue. David’s experience and strategic perspective will also be of great value to the group.”
Guss practices in the areas of taxation and trusts and estates. She represents individuals in a wide range of matters, including income, gift, estate and generation-skipping transfer tax matters and the drafting of wills and trust agreements, including charitable split-interest trusts, qualified personal residence trusts, qualified annuity trusts and insurance trusts. Guss is experienced in business succession planning, including planning with carried interests in private equity and hedge funds, retirement planning and the valuation issues associated with such planning. She provides counsel on domestic and international estate planning issues to U.S. citizens living abroad and nationals of other countries residing or owning property in the United States. She also represents corporate and individual fiduciaries in connection with the administration of estates and trusts.
Guss is a graduate of New York University School of Law (LL.M.), the City University of New York (J.D.), where she was senior notes editor of the Journal of International Law Students Association, and Barnard College (B.A.).
Kovsky practices in the area of trusts and estates law, advising individuals and families on a full spectrum of complex estate planning matters, including wills, revocable and irrevocable trusts, closely held businesses (limited liability companies, limited partnerships and business succession planning), tax-exempt organizations, estate, gift and generation-skipping transfer tax planning and multigenerational wealth transfer planning. He also advises individuals and corporate fiduciaries with respect to complex estate and trust administration matters. Kovsky’s clients are business owners, executives and professionals in a broad array of private and public companies. He has experience representing clients that have built significant family wealth in technology, life sciences, medical devices, real estate, manufacturing, private equity and hedge funds. Kovsky routinely advises clients with respect to pre-transaction gift and estate tax planning (including pre- and post-IPO planning), qualified small business stock planning, carried interest planning and the unique estate planning issues for Section 16 insiders.
Kovsky is a graduate of Temple University Beasley School of Law (LL.M.), Tulane Law School (J.D.) and the University of Michigan (B.A.).
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