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Jeffrey A. Asher

Jeffrey A. Asher joined Pryor Cashman in April 2008 as a partner in the Trusts and Estates Group and head of the Elder Care Practice. Mr. Asher concentrates pri­marily in the areas of Estate Planning, Estates and Trusts Administration, Probate, Elder Law, Medicaid Planning, and Asset Protection. His impeccable reputation for honesty, compassion, and diligence has earned him the trust and respect of the ever-growing number of attorneys, financial advisors and accounting professionals who consult with him regularly. Representative matters in which Mr. Asher is involved include:

• Represented clients in connection with their desire to transfer assets with minimum exposure to estate, gift and generation‑skipping transfer taxes
• Preparation of wills, living trusts, irrevocable life insurance trusts, and other trust agreements, stockholders' agreements, buy-sell agreements, and all other documents necessary to implement an overall estate plan, as well as living wills, health care proxies and powers of attorney
• Preparation of advanced estate planning techniques, including grantor retained annuity trusts, qualified personal residence trusts, family limited partnerships, and intentionally defective grantor trusts
• Represented large estates and charitable-minded estates in connection with charitable gift transactions, bequests, and creation of trust arrangements including charitable lead trusts, charitable remainder trusts, private foundations, public charities and other tax-exempt organizations
• Represented executors, trustees, and other fiduciaries in connection with their probate, tax, accounting and other obligations, and assisted them in carrying out their duties
• Represented families and fiduciaries in the probate process, preparation of estate tax returns, fiduciary income tax returns and accountings, as well as coordinated and prepared post‑mortem tax planning techniques
• Represented several well-known artists in the creation of their estate plans, which included creation of private foundations and one of which was centered around a public museum created as a N.Y.S. education corporation chartered as a public museum by  the Board of Regents for and on behalf of the N.Y.S. Education Department
• Successfully represented clients before the Internal Revenue Service and other taxing and governmental authorities in connection with the creation of tax-exempt entities and public charities
• Acted as fiduciary in connection with probate matters, living trusts, irrevocable life insurance trusts, and other trust and property arrangements
• Represented individuals in connection with their long-term healthcare decisions, disability protections, and need for advanced medical directives
• Represented individuals and assisted them in obtaining benefits from the Medicare and Medicaid systems to pay for long-term home care and nursing home care

Other representative matters in which Mr. Asher has been involved include: 

• Estate of Juanita Joy Jackson (N.Y. Co. Surrogate’s Court): Successfully defended the estate against claims for legal fees filed by outgoing attorneys on basis that such outgoing attorneys failed to prove that they provided worthwhile services to the executor
• Estate of Rosemarie Beck Phelps (N.Y. Co. Surrogate’s Court): Represented the son of well-known artist-decedent as executor in connection with various renunciations of probate and non-probate property designed and intended to result in funding of a N.Y.S.  education corporation chartered as a public museum by the Board of Regents for and on behalf of the N.Y.S. Education Department; as a result, a substantial taxable estate was rendered non-taxable
• Estate of John Doe (Queens Co. Surrogate’s Court and Charlotte Co. Probate Court, Florida): Successfully represented the sole distributee/fiduciary in connection with the probate of decedent’s estate in New York and Florida and defended the sole distributee/fiduciary against claims filed by brothers of decedent and uncles to the sole distributee/fiduciary
• Estate of Jane Doe (Westchester Co. Surrogate’s Court): Successfully represented  income beneficiary and several remainder beneficiaries of a testamentary trust in connection with their application to remove a very large and prominent, but ultimately hostile and negligent, national financial institution as trustee of testamentary trust.

Mr. Asher is a 1996 graduate of Touro Law School, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Suffolk County Bar Association’s Journal of the Suffolk Academy of Law and received Touro Law School’s Outstanding Service to the Community award.

Previous Positions

• Rahmanan Asher, PLLC, Managing Partner (2004-08)
• Law Offices of Jeffrey A. Asher, PLLC, Member (2002-04)
• Law Offices of Moshe Katlowitz, Associate (1999-2002)
• Horowitz, Mencher, Klosowski & Nestler, P.C., Associate (1996-99)

Publications

• Co-author (with Eric Woldenberg and Alan Laufer), New York Law Amended to Broaden Revocatory Effect of Divorce on Dispositions to Former Spouse and Nomination of Former Spouse as Fiduciary, Pryor Cashman Legal Update, September 2008
• Author, Newly Enacted Asset Protection Statutes, Pryor Cashman Legal Update, June 2008

Speaking Engagements

• Speaker, The Probate Process From Start to Finish, National Business Institute, Inc., Manhattan (October 2008)
• Speaker, Advanced Asset Protection Strategies, National Business Institute, Inc., Long Island (August 2008)
• Speaker, Estate Planning Basics, National Business Institute, Inc., Manhattan (July 2008)
• Speaker, An Attorney’s Guide to Asset Protection, National Business Institute, Inc., Manhattan (January 2008)
• Legal Commentator on Trusts and Estates and Elder Law matters for Court TV, CNN Headline News and The CBS Early Show
• Community Educator on various Estate Planning and Elder Law topics, N.Y.S. Bar Association
• Frequent lecturer for various financial institutions, civic groups and community organizations

Teaching Positions

• Approved Continuing Education Credit Sponsor by the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. and Connecticut Department of Insurance 
• Seminar Instructor, Non-Resident Alien Income Tax Assistance Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1993)

Professional Affiliations

• Estate Planning Council of New York City, Peer Elected Member
• National Network of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc. 
• New York State Bar Association, Member Elder Law and Trusts and Estates Sections
• Connecticut Bar Association

Other Activities

• Recognized by both Madison Who’s Who Among Executives and Professionals and Strathmore’s Who’s Who as a Lifetime Member in 2007
• Member, Board of Directors, Alzheimer's Association, New York City Chapter; Chair of 20th Annual Alzheimer's Association Memory Walk