Family Offices

Cleary Gottlieb’s family office practice is a multidisciplinary practice that integrates the experience of our private clients, private equity, private funds, tax, M&A, capital markets, real estate, regulatory, intellectual property, and executive compensation and employee benefits groups.

We represent a substantial number of family offices and families with significant wealth. We work seamlessly across Cleary’s 16 offices around the globe to help clients navigate complex legal issues, including those with multijurisdictional and multigenerational aspects. We pride ourselves on our ability to provide sophisticated but practical advice, helping our clients achieve their personal, tax, business, and charitable objectives.

Our firm regularly represents single- and multi-family offices in a range of matters including:

• Family office and private trust company formation and administration;
• Estate, gift, generation-skipping transfer, and income tax planning;
• Cross-border income and transfer tax planning, including the structuring of investment vehicles and holding companies;
• Tax controversy for U.S. and non-U.S. taxpayers, including dispute resolution with federal, state, and local tax agencies for high net worth individuals, their businesses, and related entities;
• Pre-U.S. immigration planning and expatriation;
• Minority equity and venture capital investments;
• Real estate investments, including REITs;
• Equity and debt investments in private and public companies;
• Fund formation and fund investments, as limited partners, in U.S. and international private equity funds;
• SPAC formation, including complex sponsor structuring, as well as investments in SPACs;
• Governance and succession planning for family offices and family-owned businesses;
• Founder stakes in businesses, including third-party monetization transactions and restructuring interests;
• Complex securities regulatory advice including under the Securities Act, Securities Exchange Act, Investment Advisers Act, and Investment Company Act on issues ranging from the family office exemption, changes of control, private investment structuring, and regulatory filings;
• Charitable planning, including the formation and administration of private foundations;
• Intellectual property matters; and
• Employment matters.