Senior Private Client Services Trust & Estate Administration Counsel Job Indianapolis Indiana USA,Law/Legal

Location: Indianapolis

Overview

The role primarily focuses on trust and estate administration and settlement, operating with a high degree of autonomy as the day-to-day point person for fiduciary administration matters.
Advise individual and corporate fiduciaries, beneficiaries, high-net-worth families, and closely held business owners through all stages of trust and estate settlement.
Manage a full docket of trust administration, probate, and estate settlement matters from intake to closing, including guiding fiduciaries through asset marshaling, valuation, retitling, debt payment, and distributions. This encompasses handling supervised/unsupervised estate administrations and trust-related court proceedings.
Interpret wills, trust instruments, and governing documents; counsel fiduciaries on duties, powers, discretionary distributions, conflict avoidance, and risk management. Coordinate post-mortem tax planning and compliance (Form 706, Form 1041, portability, basis, gift/GST tax) with external professionals.
Resolve administration issues such as trust modification, decanting, nonjudicial settlement agreements, DISCLAIMERS, and beneficiary/creditor disputes, collaborating with firm litigation colleagues when matters become contested. Oversee complex assets like closely held business interests and real estate.
The firm is open to attorneys from diverse professional backgrounds, including those with experience as trust officers, estate/trust settlement officers, fiduciary counsel, or senior fiduciary advisors from banks, trust companies, or family offices.
This position offers opportunities for a Counsel or partner-track arrangement and provides hybrid work options.
Requires a proven ability to independently manage a high-volume, complex administration and settlement docket comparable to a trust and estate administration partner or senior trust/estate settlement officer. Strong command of estate, gift, generation-skipping transfer, and fiduciary income tax principles as they apply to administration is essential, with Indiana probate and trust practice experience strongly preferred.
Estate planning experience is valued as a complementary skill set, offering opportunities to advise on planning matters, and exposure to fiduciary litigation or tax controversy matters is a plus.