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Since graduating from law school in 1982, George has practiced exclusively in the areas of estate planning, tax and the administration of trusts and estates.   

George is a fifth generation Californian and grew up in Los Angeles, California.  After graduating from Stanford in 1978, George earned his law degree from Hastings College of the Law in 1982, where he was a member of Order of the Coif and an editor of the Hastings Law Journal.  George then joined the Estates and Trusts Group at Pillsbury Madison & Sutro (now Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman) George became a partner of that firm in 1990 and the chair of the Estates and Trusts department in1995.  In December 1996, George left Pillsbury to join the Friedman, McCubbin law firm.  

George is a member of the State Bar of California and is a Certified Specialist in Estate Planning.  Trust and Probate Law by The State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization. 

George is a member of the Bar Association of San Francisco and the San Francisco Estate Planning Council. George is listed in The Best Lawyers in America and in Super Lawyers (an honor given to the top 5% of attorneys). 

George served as a Member and Advisor of the Executive Committee of the Estate Planning, Trust and Probate Law Section of the State Bar of California from 1999 to 2005.  He was an editor of the California Trusts and Estates Quarterly for 2001-2003. 

George has served on the Estate Planning Council of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He currently serves on the Professional Advisors Council of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation and on the Program Committee for Stanford University’s Annual Conference on Charitable Giving.  

George is a former trustee of Filoli Center and Coyote Point Museum for Environmental Education and a former officer of The Society of California Pioneers. He has served as Counsel to The Guardsmen. 

George is the author of Recent Changes in Tax Law, published in SFMOMA News, published by San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, May-June 1999; California Estate Tax: California Offers Deferral in Conformity with IRC § 6166, California Trusts and Estates Quarterly, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Summer 1999); and AB21 Requires Careful Advice To Testators About Making Gifts To Household Employees, California Trusts and Estates Quarterly, Vol. 9, No. 1 (Spring 2003).

George lives in Burlingame with his wife Debbie and three children.

·           Advice and preparation of documents to establish charitable pledges to make donations to public charities, including issues regarding donor recognition, accumulation of donations for building fund or other purpose, terms of matching gifts, and restrictions on use of funds by charity. 

·           Advice to preserve tax exemption of trusts created before effective date of the generation-skipping transfer tax, including advice about trustee changes, changes in jurisdiction, combination of multiple trusts, and methods to continue trusts for multiple generations. 

·           Advice and preparation of documents to create various forms of charitable remainder trust, including annuity trusts, percentage-payment unitrusts, “greater of” income or percentage unitrusts and “flip” unitrusts. 

·           Advice and preparation of documents to create and manage private family foundations, including advice about compliance with IRS private family foundation rules regarding self-dealing, excess business holdings, jeopardizing investments and the like. 

·           Advice and preparation of documents regarding ownership of property between husband and wife, including advice about federal income tax basis rules and alternatives to minimize income taxes after first spouse’ death. 

·           Advice and preparation of documents for married couples who are not U.S. citizens about restrictions on the estate tax marital deduction and choice of strategies to secure marital deduction at first spouse’s death. 

·           Advice and preparation of documents to make lifetime gifts to minimize gift and estate taxes, including trusts investing in life insurance policies. 

·           Advice to executors and trustees after the death of an individual regarding broad range of administration issues, including Probate Court proceedings, compliance with notice requirements, advice concerning accounting responsibilities, and advice about duties and responsibilities of executors and trustees. 

·           Advice about and preparation of gift tax and estate tax returns, including issues concerning valuation discounts for fractional gifts and interests in family partnerships, claim of marital deduction for gifts to spouses, exclusion of irrevocable trusts, allocation of generation-skipping transfer tax exemption, payment of estate tax over 15 years under IRC section 6166, and the like. 

·           Advice about income taxation of estates and irrevocable trusts, including advice about determination of “income” distributable to trust income beneficiary, availability of and accounting required to secure charitable deduction for irrevocable trusts, tax alternatives regarding distribution of assets other than cash and planning regarding fiscal year elections for estates and trusts. 

·           Advice and plan to form a single stock family partnership combining high-basis shares held by one generation with low-basis shares held by irrevocable trusts to allow diversification while minimizing capital gains.

The information you obtain at this site is not, nor is it intended to be, legal advice. You should consult an attorney for individual advice regarding your own situation.

© Friedman, McCubbin Law Group LLP  2016