Jewish-Owned Law Firm Wins Major Cases

Jewish-owned law firm Gaslowitz Frankel won two major cases this month, both involving high-value trusts. Firm partner and former chair of the Breman Museum Craig Frankel, along with firm partner LeAnne Gilbert, were the leading litigators in both cases.

The first case involved the removal of a trustee who the firm’s clients believed was not operating the trust as intended by their deceased father. As their clients had already previously sought to remove the trustee in arbitration, Frankel and Gilbert counseled them instead to utilize Georgia’s trust modification statute.

“Removing a trustee for cause usually requires showing that the trustee has breached his duties,” explained Gilbert. “The modification statute allows beneficiaries to modify a trust to provide them with a no-fault mechanism for removing and replacing the trustee.”

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The trustee objected to the modification, but after an evidentiary hearing, the trial court concluded there was no reason that having a corporate trustee managing the trust would be inconsistent with the trust’s purpose.

“The judge in this case rightly understood that if our clients’ father wanted to force them to keep a trustee with whom they could not get along, he had to be clear and explicit,” said Gilbert.

In the second case, after a seven-day trial, Frankel, Gilbert and divorce counsel Alvah Smith secured a verdict in a trust dispute which set aside the trust and awarded a substantial amount of money to their client.

Their client alleged that she had been misled into signing the trust by her husband and that the vast majority of the wealth created during their multi-decade marriage had been titled to that trust. Their client did not discover the true terms or meaning of the trust until years after she had signed the document at her husband’s request, and this discovery contributed to her decision to file for divorce.

The Court set aside the trust and ordered the trustee/attorney to return the trust assets to the marital estate. The jury then issued a verdict awarding the client fifty percent of the assets formerly held by the trust and fifty percent of the other assets in the martial estate for a combined verdict of $18,554,317.66.

“This case underscores long-held Georgia policy that spouses owe each other fiduciary duties, including the duties of good faith and highest loyalty, in all legal dealings,” said Frankel.