Plunkett Cooney

Bloomfield Hills Estate Planning Attorneys Delivering Sophisticated Planning for Families, Business Owners, and High-Net-Worth Clients

Founded in 1913, Plunkett Cooney is one of the Midwest's oldest and largest law firms, providing legal services to individuals, families, business owners, and institutions from offices throughout Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana. While widely recognized for its litigation and business law practices, the firm's Private Client Services Group focuses on estate planning, estate administration, trust planning, probate litigation, and wealth preservation. The firm's attorneys work closely with clients and their professional advisors to develop customized strategies that reflect each family's financial goals, values, and long-term legacy.

Sophisticated Wealth Transfer and Estate Planning

Plunkett Cooney's estate planning practice is built around serving clients whose planning needs extend beyond traditional wills and trusts. The firm's attorneys regularly advise business owners, professionals, executives, and high-net-worth families on complex estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer tax issues while developing individualized plans designed to preserve wealth and facilitate efficient asset transfers.

Rather than approaching estate planning as a standalone service, the firm's attorneys collaborate with accountants, wealth managers, bankers, and other trusted advisors to coordinate every aspect of a client's financial and estate planning strategy. This team-based approach helps ensure that trusts, beneficiary designations, business interests, and real estate holdings work together to accomplish each client's long-term objectives.

Planning for Complex Assets and Family Legacies

Plunkett Cooney represents clients with a broad range of assets, including closely held businesses, commercial real estate, investment portfolios, family enterprises, intellectual property, farms, collectibles, and charitable foundations. The firm's attorneys routinely design estate plans incorporating sophisticated planning techniques such as irrevocable trusts, charitable trusts, dynasty trusts, grantor retained trusts, family limited partnerships, and business succession strategies when appropriate.

The firm also assists families with special needs planning, charitable giving, marital planning, and tax-efficient wealth transfers, tailoring each plan to the client's unique financial circumstances and family goals.

Guidance Through Estate and Trust Administration

In addition to proactive estate planning, Plunkett Cooney advises personal representatives, trustees, and beneficiaries throughout the administration of estates and trusts. The firm's attorneys assist clients with probate filings, creditor matters, fiduciary responsibilities, tax filings, asset distributions, and trust administration while also representing clients in probate and trust disputes when litigation becomes necessary.

This combination of planning, administration, and litigation experience allows the firm to counsel clients throughout every stage of the estate planning process—from creating a comprehensive plan to carrying out a loved one's final wishes.

Leadership in Michigan Trusts and Estates Law

Plunkett Cooney's Trusts & Estates Practice Group includes attorneys with extensive experience in estate planning, taxation, charitable planning, nonprofit law, probate litigation, and wealth strategy planning. Practice Group Leader Laura L. Brownfield concentrates on comprehensive estate planning, charitable planning, and tax-efficient wealth transfers, while partner William A. Beluzo, Jr., a Board Certified Estate Planning attorney and former IRS estate and gift tax attorney, brings decades of experience in estate planning, probate, tax strategy, and asset protection. The firm's attorneys are frequent lecturers, authors, and leaders within Michigan's estate planning community.

Offices Throughout Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana

Plunkett Cooney's primary office is located in Bloomfield Hills in Oakland County, with additional offices throughout Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana. This regional presence enables the firm to serve individuals, families, fiduciaries, and business owners across multiple jurisdictions while drawing on the resources of a full-service law firm with more than a century of legal experience.

Practice Areas

• Estate Planning

• Trust & Estate Planning

• Estate Administration

• Probate

• Probate Litigation

• Trust Administration

• Wealth Preservation

• Estate & Gift Tax Planning

• Business Succession Planning

• Charitable Planning

• Special Needs Planning

• Asset Protection

• Marital Planning

• Nonprofit Law