Deborah M. Baird

Deborah M. Baird concentrates her practice in the areas of taxation and trusts and estates law, advising families and individuals in connection with the planning of significant and complex estate planning matters, including wills, revocable and irrevocable trusts, closely held businesses, estate, gift and generation-skipping transfer tax planning and multi-generational wealth transfer planning.

Ms Baird advises clients on a variety of issues ranging from business succession planning and the valuation issues associated with such planning, to charitable giving and lifetime gifts. A significant portion of her practice involves the ongoing review of clients’ overall estate plans, implementation of sophisticated trusts, such as lifetime spousal lifetime access trusts, dynasty trusts, life insurance trusts, transfers to irrevocable trusts involving complex valuations, use of charitable split-interest trusts, use of grantor retained annuity trusts and sales to intentionally defective grantor trusts.  Her practice includes modifying trusts, structuring new trusts and decanting.

In addition to the preparation of wills and trust agreements, Ms. Baird is experienced in probate and estate administration, and the associated litigation. Ms. Baird frequently represents fiduciaries, including corporate and individual executors and trustees, and beneficiaries in connection with a wide variety of complex issues arising in the administration of estates and trusts.  She advises with respect to the preparation of estate, gift and income tax returns as well as compliance with provisions of the governing instrument and applicable law and the preparation and settlement of the fiduciary’s account. She is experienced in contested probate proceedings and provides counsel to fiduciaries in estate and gift tax audits before the Internal Revenue Service, addressing such issues as the valuation of works of art, closely held businesses and other hard-to-value assets. 

Ms. Baird also advises in the formation and operation of private foundations and charitable organizations, and has assisted several organizations in the process of becoming a public charity.

Ms. Baird is a graduate of New York University School of Law (LL.M., Taxation), and State University of New York at Buffalo Law School (J.D.) where she received the Prentice Hall Tax Award.  She is a graduate of Smith College (A.B.).