Introduction to the Firm

Founded in 2001, Gadsden Schneider & Woodward LLP concentrates its practice in estate planning, trust and estate administration, trust and estate litigation, charitable gift planning and related areas of tax and personal and fiduciary law.  Its three founding partners, Chris Gadsden, Pam Schneider and Steve Woodward, had previously been leading partners in the personal and fiduciary law department of a large Philadelphia law firm.  Biographies of the founding partners are included below.  Directions to the firm's offices, which are conveniently located in the western suburbs of Philadelphia, are also included in a later section.

Gadsden Schneider & Woodward combines the sophisticated legal skills of a national or global law firm with the intimacy, informality and attentiveness to client needs that is characteristic of smaller firms.  For clients, this brings many advantages:

• Experience and Extraordinary Expertise.  Each of the three founding partners has more than twenty years of experience in estate planning and fiduciary matters.  All three are fellows of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel.  Only a small handful of other Pennsylvania law firms can claim to have as many members of this prestigious organization in their ranks.  Pam is a past chair of the Section on Real Property, Probate and Trust Law of the American Bar Association, a past member of the Board of Regents of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel and a nationally-known expert on estate and gift taxation.  Chris is a past chair of the Probate and Trust Law Section of the Philadelphia Bar Association, co-chair of the National Conference of Lawyers and Corporate Fiduciaries and a former instructor of law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.  Steve is a co-author of the most highly regarded treatise on the Pennsylvania Probate, Estates and Fiduciaries Code.

• Concentration of Practice Area.  The strategic focus of a large multi-practice law firm may be directed to the needs of its larger departments, such as litigation and corporate finance.  By contrast our firm focuses all of its energies in the areas of estate planning, trust and estate administration and litigation, charitable gift planning and related tax and fiduciary matters.  Our lawyers are in regular contact with counterparts throughout the country and they stay abreast of all developments in the field. 

• Direct Contact.  Gadsden Schneider & Woodward clients work closely with one or more of the founding partners, who are directly responsible for the work.  At times the partner may be assisted by an associate lawyer or paralegal, but the primary contact for the client will be the partner.

• Innovative and Client-Focused.  Most of our clients do not want to be handed a lengthy menu of estate planning techniques. They want their estate planning lawyer to listen carefully to their situation, sift through the available techniques and present to them the strategies that are suitable and appropriate for their needs.  We pride ourselves on being good listeners who are not only knowledgeable about both the traditional and cutting edge approaches to estate planning but also extremely innovative in customizing those techniques to the particular circumstances of our clients.  In estate planning, we believe that one size does not fit all.

• Independence.  We provide totally independent legal advice. We do not sell products and we do not profit from referrals to other lawyers or other financial service professionals.  Our independence assures that our recommendations to clients are based solely on their needs and interests.  When our clients need an attorney in another practice area such as real estate or business law, we can provide referrals to other lawyers we know and trust.  We have a broad range of choices for these referrals because we are not aligned with or tied to a specific firm.  Therefore, we are free to select the attorney who is best suited for our client's needs in a particular situation.

• Responsiveness. The bureaucratic wheels of a large organization can sometimes grind slowly. We are not encumbered by a structure that requires excessive delegation or reassignment of tasks. We can act quickly and provide our clients with prompt service. We also emphasize frequent communication with a client about the progress we are making on his or her project.

• Long-term Relationships. In a large number of instances we have represented our clients or members of their family for many years. We enjoy these long-term, multi-generational relationships and we believe that our clients benefit from the continuity and familiarity that we can bring to their estate planning.  

Description of Our Practice

             We focus our practice on many facets of wealth transfer planning, estate planning, trust and estate administration, trust and estate litigation, charitable gift planning and related areas of tax and personal and fiduciary law.  Here is a more detailed description of our work in these areas.

Estate Planning

We advise individual clients about strategies for preserving wealth and transferring it to their families or their beneficiaries.  Our clients have diverse backgrounds, professions, family circumstances and asset holdings.  They include senior executives of publicly-held corporations, owners of closely-held businesses, individuals with substantial inherited wealth, professionals such as doctors, lawyers and educators and extended families with complex asset holdings and family offices.  Our estate planning for these diverse clients must be customized to their individual circumstances and, most of all, to their goals and objectives.  The complex needs of our clients require us to think outside the box.

            Our many years of experience have exposed us to many different situations and have taught us to be good listeners.  Our clients typically want more than strategies to minimize taxes.  They seek our judgment about the protection of wealth from creditors, failed marriages and possible fiscal irresponsibility of the beneficiaries.  They want our views about the impact of wealth on younger family members and our suggestions about educating younger generations on wealth management and philanthropy. 

Our estate planning work generally leads to the production of wills, trust agreements, powers of attorney, living wills and partnership and limited liability company documents.  Our forms of these documents are updated regularly and reflect emerging legal and tax issues, and, most importantly, are customized to fit the particular circumstances of each client.

Estate and Trust Administration

            We represent executors and trustees in their administration of estates and trusts.  Our clients include family members who have no prior experience with fiduciary roles and, at the other extreme, the largest trust companies in the country, which manage thousands of trust relationships. 

            Our work for these fiduciaries includes probating wills, assistance with the collection and valuation of assets, compliance with probate, estate and trust laws, preparation or review of income and estate or inheritance tax returns, special legal issues that arise during the course of estate or trust administration, and proceedings at the end of estate or trust administration to discharge the fiduciaries from liability.

Charitable Gift Planning

            Many of our clients are charitably minded.  They seek our advice about alternative strategies for their philanthropic giving and the tax consequences associated it.  We regularly prepare charitable remainder trusts and charitable lead trusts.  We help clients to establish private charitable foundations and to secure IRS recognition of their tax-exempt status, as well as advising about legal and tax issues that arise during the ongoing administration of such foundations.

            We are also counsel to a number of charitable organizations in connection with their planned giving programs.

Estate and Trust Litigation

            Our firm regularly represents clients in disputes involving estate and trust matters.  In Pennsylvania those disputes are generally litigated in the Orphans' Courts of each county.  We regularly appear before all of the Orphans' Courts in the southeastern counties of Pennsylvania and from time to time before other courts throughout the state.  Estate and trust disputes can take a variety of forms.  A few of the more common forms of case that we handle are:

• Will contests in which the validity of a will is challenged.
• Claims that one beneficiary has tortiously interfered with the inheritance rights of another.
• Cases involving the interpretation of wills or trust agreements.
• Claims by or against fiduciaries with regard to investment performance or fiduciary compensation.
• Incapacity proceedings leading to the appointment of guardians.

            The Orphans' Court is also the forum for many types of undisputed proceedings such as the settlement of accountings that have been filed by executors or trustees and proceedings in which executors or trustees seek instruction from the Court.

            We have significant experience with all of these matters.  Because litigation can be expensive, we work hard to be thorough but to manage carefully the costs of each phase of the case.  We keep our clients closely informed about the progress of a case and give them realistic assessments (updated on a regular basis) about the probability of success.