Jonathan D. Carlisle and Associates is an Estate Planning, Trusts and Probate Administration firm serving clients from Middlesex, Fairfield, and New London Counties for over 30 years.
Jonathan takes great pride in representing individuals from all walks of life, and with diverse financial profiles, from teachers and artists, to high-net-worth individuals and accomplished executives and entrepreneurs. He has earned his clients’ loyalty and respect by providing caring, sensitive, highly personalized advice and counsel in a totally comfortable and totally discreet and confidential professional environment.
Jonathan is fully motivated and technically trained to deploy strategies – most notably trusts – designed to reduce estate taxes over generations, but he avoids pat or inflexible formulas and prefers to identify and then skillfully respond to his clients’ (and their extended families) individualized and often unique requirements and to document them appropriately.
He has extensive experience in numerous Probate Courts around the State (and with their Judges and Clerks), in addition to those serving the Essex (and Greenwich) areas where his practice has been and still is geographically concentrated. While he does not litigate in the Superior Courts, he has handled Will contests and Will interpretation actions (and other contested matters such as Accounting proceedings) in the Probate Courts. Jonathan represents Trustees and Executors, individuals and Banks and Trust Companies, and often acts as Trustee and/or Executor himself in special situations where a very high level of mutual trust has been achieved over time.
Estate Planning
Highly personalized counseling re: personal/legal/financial preparedness and planning, and related document preparation to high standards; Lifetime Planning as well as Estate Planning. Drafting complex (or relatively simple) Wills, and Trusts of all types: Revocable Living Trusts, Simple one-generation Trusts, Multi-generation, generation-skipping Trusts, Qualified Personal Residence trusts (QPRTs), Charitable Remainder Trusts (CRTs), Irrevocable Life Insurance Trusts (ILITs), Charitable Lead Trusts, Special Needs Trusts; as well as Living Wills, Powers of Attorney, Appointments of Health Care Agents and related HIPPA-related authorizations, Prospective Appointments of Conservator(s), etc.
We encourage individuality of expression, not formulaic plans and documents.
Probate Administration
“Settling” or handling the administration (probate, and estate tax proceedings) of Estates, and the ongoing administration of Trusts; Representation in connection with proposed or actual Will challenges (contests) or construction (interpretation) proceedings; Representation of beneficiaries challenging Estates, Executors, Trustees in connection with Wills and Trusts; and Conservatorships.
Fiduciary Services
Jonathan himself serves as Executor and Trustee (or Co-Executor or Co-Trustee), often with a family member or a bank, but often independently; balancing the need to be personally attentive to the client and to the beneficiaries, and to evaluate (and exercise re: his discretion) their needs and wishes, with the need to invest (or engage other professionals to invest) effectively, conservatively and efficiently, and the need to act responsibly and lawfully in carrying out the declared wishes of the individual who has made the Will or established the Trust; investments-related review and advice.
On occasion, Jonathan will agree to act as attorney-in-fact per an explicit power of attorney for a (likely older) client, often one with no close family nearby, in effect managing much or most of her or his financial life, with any limits desired of course, including tax and insurance and IRA decisions and elections and matters , bill-paying, coordinating with investment advisor or Trustee, etc. (Only by special arrangement )
Please Note: We are not registered investment advisors and offer no special skill or expertise, but have abundant experience and welcome opportunities to counsel clients, individuals and Trustees especially, in terms of offering judgments, often second opinions, as to appropriateness of portfolios from perspectives of balance, yield vs growth, and other factors based on a client’s individual profile or a Trust’s evident purposes.
Real Estate
Simple as well as complex real estate transactions: sales, purchases, gifts of property to (OR creation of conservation easements/protections for property with participation of) Land Trusts or Conservation Trusts or The Nature Conservancy.
Representation of Applicants, and of objecting parties in matters of planning, zoning, wetlands, etc. public hearings or private filings.
Additional Practice Areas
Advising on employment agreements and their termination; analyzing and advising on proposed business ventures, and/or private investments, and related risk factors potentially tempering possible/likely rewards. Representation of artists, and collectors of fine art; disposition issues, authenticity and provenance issues, protection/insurance issues.