Firm Overview

The Law Offices of John E. McCullough focuses its practice on trusts & estates, asset protection and tax planning for individuals and families. Related practice areas include mergers & acquisitions, business succession planning, charitable planning and retirement planning.

The Law Offices of John E. McCullough is a boutique firm that focuses primarily on individuals, specifically on entrepreneurs who are, or who may one day, face a wealth creating event. The overriding aim is to help clients achieve their wealth accumulation and preservation goals and to prepare them for business success. We offer creative yet time-tested solutions to
address the business owner’s needs. Our experience dealing with income, gift, estate and generation-skipping tax laws and the unique fiduciary duties arising in the context of an owner’s death enables us to provide valuable services from the point of business formation through pre- and post-event planning.

Personal planning for a business owner on the most elementary level involves such items as revocable living trusts, financial powers of attorney, medical powers of attorney, pour-over wills and, if desired, living wills or advanced medical directives. These documents will ensure that, when the business owner becomes disabled or dies, a designated trustee will be able to
step in right away and act on behalf of the business owner and his family while avoiding the probate process. More advanced planning can include irrevocable life insurance trusts, asset protection trusts, family partnerships and charitable trusts.

The relationship between business and estate planning is critical to an entrepreneur’s ability to create, protect and transfer wealth. All attorneys and staff at the McCullough Law Firm work closely with existing advisors during the growth and accumulation phases of a business and the eventual liquidity event. It is our role to closely protect the entrepreneur’s interest,
especially in the event that his or her interest diverges from the interests of the company.

Any successful business should have a business succession plan. Essential business succession planning includes proper entity selection, appropriate tax-efficient deferred compensation plans, key man insurance and either a buy-sell agreement or a stock redemption plan. The first goal of such planning is to ensure that the business will survive the death or disability of the
business owner by providing enough resources to hire a replacement. The second goal of such planning is to ensure that the business owner and their family will receive the full value of his or her interest upon the retirement or the death or disability of the business owner.

The firm has been involved in planning work for executives, government officials and principal shareholders of some of the area’s largest companies and closely-held businesses, including technology companies, financial institutions and real estate development companies; offshore trust and asset protection planning; and in tax planning for the individual during the sale of
a company or a concentrated stock position.