Practice Areas: Estate planning & probate, Estate & trust litigation, Tax; view more
Licensed in Oregon since: 1991
Education: Lewis & Clark Law School
Selected to Super Lawyers: 2012 - 2019, 2021 - 2023 Details
Abby Wool Landon focuses her practice largely on estate planning, probate, and administration matters. Wool Landon™ is based in Tigard, Oregon, and Abby represents clients throughout the greater Portland area and across the state. In addition to being admitted to practice before all Oregon state courts since 1991, she is also admitted to practice in Arizona and Washington.
Ms. Landon’s estate planning practice has encompassed the preparation and review of wills, living and irrevocable trusts, advance medical directives, and financial and other types of powers of attorney. Many of her clients have substantial assets and a high net worth, and the plans that Abby helps to create for them are often highly sophisticated, encompassing complex strategies that involve the use of charitable trusts, grantor retained annuity trusts, dynasty trusts, lifetime qualified terminable interest trusts and generation-skipping transfer tax trusts. Abby also helps clients who are moving from community property states to Oregon, and vice versa, as well as other cross state border tax and estate planning. Wool Landon also has an 'emerging estate' program for families and individuals with growing assets. These emerging estate plans form the infrastructure that can grow and develop as circumstances change. Abby gets great joy teaching young lawyers how to draft effective estate plans that leave loving families behind.
Ms. Landon advises individuals, limited liability companies and family-limited partnerships. Her work has included the preparation and review of business succession plans, qualified domestic trusts, and prenuptial and postmarital agreements. Abby also works with business attorneys in assisting entrepreneurs with respect to the most appropriate form of legal entity that their prospective new business ventures should operate under and how that will affect their estate plans.
In her probate and estate administration practice, Abby assists clients with the preparation and filing of final estate and income tax returns, will contests, trust disputes, and claims of breaches of fiduciary duties. Her experience has most recently included assisting trustees and personal representatives in administering complicated estate plans, often ones that lack liquidity, written so that family disputes are hard to avoid and involve large but illiquid assets. Together with the firm trial attorney, Abby is skilled at reorganizing troubled estates and obtaining satisfactory outcomes for her clients.
Practice areas
Estate planning & probate, Estate & trust litigation, Tax: businessFocus areas
Estate planning, Guardianships & conservatorships, Living wills, Power of attorney, Probate & estate administration, Trusts, Wills, Will contests, Tax law
- 70% Estate planning & probate
- 20% Estate & trust litigation
- 10% Tax: business
First Admitted: 1991, Oregon
Professional Webpage: https://www.woollandon.com/the-founder.html
- Author and Presenter, From State to State: Community Property in Transit, Connecticut State Bar Association Annual Meeting, also presented at the Oregon Jewish Community Foundation Professional Advisors Group, Comprehensive review of law applied to community property in separate property states, on death and divorce, and how to preserve the tax benefits when moving from a community property state to a common law state, June 10, 2019, Lawyers; Wealth Managers; CPA's
- Presenter, Building a Magical Legacy to Span Generations: Estate Planning Lessons from Harry Potter
- Survey of US states law applied to cohabitating couples on death and in the event of a breakup; to be presented in Portland at the Oregon Jewish Community Foundation Professional Advisors Group in November, and published later in 2020 or early 2021, Co-Author, State to State: Cohabitation, A Guide for the Peripatetic Unmarried Couple, Law; Wealth Managers And CPA's
- Focus of section on applying marital trust income and principal applications, Co-Presenter, Oregon State Bar Advanced Estate Planning; Oregon's Uniform Principal and Income Act, Lawyers, 2019
- "Inside the Minds: Best Practices for Successful Probate Administration,” Strategies for Representing Clients in Probate Court, Author, 2012
- Oregon Super Lawyer, Estate Planning & Probate, 2012 - 2019
- Inducted as a Life Fellow in the American Bar Foundation. Membership in the Fellows is limited to one percent of lawyers licensed to practice in each jurisdiction. Members are nominated by their peers and elected by the Board of the American Bar Foundation, 2020
- Northwest Academy, Board of Directors, Trustee, 2009 - 2012
- Northwest Academy, Board of Directors, Annual Fundraiser
- Northwest Academy, Board of Directors, Member
- Oregon Community Foundation, Metro Council Member, 2008 - 2012
- Better World Club, Board of Directors, Member, 2005 - 2016
- Lewis & Clark Law School, Portland Oregon, J.D., 1991
- Simmons College, B.S.
- Attended 51st Annual Heckerling Institute of Estate Planning, 2017
- Attended 54th Annual Heckerling Institute of Estate Planning, 2020
- Attended 53rd Annual Heckerling Institute of Estate Planning, 2019
- Attended 52nd Annual Heckerling Institute of Estate Planning, 2018
- Completed 26 complex estate plans for high net worth clients, developed and customized a "Pass Through" trust relying on US v. Clayton for up to date flexible tax planning for each client. Also supervised and established the Emerging Estate Plan , a flat fee program she developed over a ten year period that creates training opportunities for young associates to learn how to draft simpler plans and to develop and grow with their younger clients, 2018
- Since starting Wool Landon in March 2020, I have continued to work with my long-time high net worth business owners, developing their business succession plans in conjunction with their estate and disability plans. I have added several new high net worth business owner clients: thank you to the advisors working with my current client base who recommend me for my skill at working with complex business structures for succession planning. At Wool Landon we are efficiently managing new plans and updates for clients with assets valued for estate tax purposes between $2M and $15M. We create flexible plans that adapt to change for our clients. Additionally, to ensure that we are a complete solution for planning, administration and related litigation, I am training several young people to take part in the Emerging Estate Planning aspects of our firm services. Training young people is one reason I formed Wool Landon, because they are the future of estate planning and administration. Wool Landon has a unique plan and a bright future, 2020
- Developed unique trust, the "ILIT Plus" TM which allows settlors of grantor trusts to simply hold and manage business assets in an irrevocable trust while a third party trustee manages the policies of life insurance held by the Trustee; helped clients over 60 identify and place high quality life insurance for wealth replacement in these trusts and strategy for managing assets for growth, legacy and transfer tax payment, 2020
- Connecticut State Bar Association Annual Meeting Presentation, From State to State: Community Property in Transit, 2019
- U.S. Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit
- Washington State Bar Association, Real Property, Probate and Trust, and Tax Sections
- American Bar Association, Real Property, Probate, and Trust Section
- Multnomah Bar Association
- CCI Enterprises, Board of Directors, Professional Memberships Estate Planning Council of Portland, Member, 2004 - 2007
- Admitted to the State Bar of Arizona to better serve my mobile clients, 2019
- OSB Advanced Estate Planning Presenter, Oregon Principal and Income Act, 2019
- Multnomah Bar Foundation, Treasurer, Board of Directors, 2018 - Present
- Oregon State Bar Association (Family Law Section, Tax Section, Estate Planning Section), 1991
- Washington State Bar Association
Selections
- Super Lawyers: 2012 - 2019, 2021 - 2023
