Kristin T. Abati

Kristin Abati is a partner in the Wealth Management Group.  She has over 10 years of experience handling complex tax and estate planning matters for her clients.  Ms. Abati is listed in Best Lawyers in America and has been named repeatedly as a Massachusetts Super Lawyers Rising Star.

Practice Focus

Wealth Management:  Ms. Abati represents wealthy individuals and families in all aspects of their estate and tax planning, including serving as a trustee for her clients.  She specializes in designing plans that transfer wealth to younger generations with minimal or no tax costs. 

Representative Engagements

• Regularly drafts complex estate plans designed to minimize federal and state estate, gift and generation skipping transfer taxes. 
• Regularly advises clients on creative strategies to transfer wealth to future generations during life, including use of grantor retained annuity trusts (GRATs) and charitable lead and charitable remainder trusts (CLTs and CRTs).
• Regularly helps clients realize charitable goals, including forming family charitable foundations, and contributing property interests (including conservation restrictions) to charities.  
• Regularly manages gifting programs that transfer wealth to younger generations without incurring gift or estate taxes.
• Successfully represented trustee in litigation with trust beneficiaries over proper distribution of $25 million trust, and continues to advise trustee on all aspects of trust administration.
• Advised client regarding tax consequences of renouncing United States citizenship under tax treaties between the US and European countries.

Publications and Presentations

Ms. Abati is a speaker on estate planning and wealth management strategies throughout Massachusetts.  She recently co-authored “Fixing Crummey Problems” in the July 2012 issue of Trusts & Estates magazine and was quoted in “Tough Love” in the July 2011 issue of Private Wealth.  Ms. Abati also co-authored “Changes Ahead” in the December 2010 issue of Financial Advisor Magazine.  In February 2011, she was a panelist for the CLE/CPE webinar, “Granted Retained Annuity Trusts: Tax-Efficient Estate Planning Techniques: Using GRATS to Preserve and Transfer Assets.”

Professional and Community Involvement

Ms. Abati is a member of several charitable Boards of Directors, including the Massachusetts Appleseed Center for Law and Justice and the Beacon Hill Nursery School.  She is also active in the Dana Farber Cancer Institute as a member of the Dana Farber Leadership Council.  Ms. Abati is a former co-chair of the New Developments Committee of the Boston Bar Association.