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Estate planning and Enterprise Counsel should work together, but they answer different questions for a business-owning family.
| Category | Estate Planning Counsel | Roots & Wings Legal — Enterprise Counsel |
|---|---|---|
| Primary focus | Transfer and protection of wealth | Continuity and transition of the family enterprise |
| Core question | Who receives the business interests and other assets? | Who should own, control, lead, govern, and benefit from the enterprise? |
| Timing | Death, incapacity, lifetime wealth transfer, tax planning | Often years before ownership or leadership changes |
| Business decisions | Implements the estate and tax plan around business interests | Works through the underlying ownership, governance, succession, and transaction decisions first |
| Relationship | Essential specialist for personal estate and tax planning | Coordinates the enterprise strategy with estate, tax, corporate, and transaction counsel as needed |
Estate planning counsel determines how wealth transfers. Enterprise Counsel helps determine what should happen to the enterprise before those transfers are implemented.
How Roots & Wings Legal helps
Roots & Wings Legal helps business-owning families make the enterprise decisions that need to come before estate-planning implementation. We work through future ownership, control, leadership, governance, buyouts, and succession, then coordinate those decisions with estate and tax counsel.
If your trust says who receives the business but the family has not decided who should control it, lead it, or own it long term, contact us.