Betty is a well-known and respected advisor to families. She often represents multiple generations within families who have substantial wealth, and she especially enjoys working with her clients’ philanthropic endeavors.
Betty’s representation of clients includes not only traditional estate planning and estate administration, but also includes structuring complex estate and gifting plans. With a focus on income, estate and generation-skipping taxes, Betty works with her clients to customize their personal estate plans and implement strategies that are unique to each client. Commonly, Betty’s work involves planning with closely-held family business interests to address succession, control and liquidity needs. She frequently collaborates with her client’s advisors, including CPAs, bankers, financial managers and insurance agents.
The administration of estates upon the death of clients involves specialized knowledge of the complexity of state and federal laws, including income, estate and generation-skipping taxes, and local probate laws. Betty and her team of paralegals work with executors and trustees in the administration of estates and ongoing trusts. Betty brings over forty years of experience to the client relationship in order to assure a smooth and orderly process in administering estates and trusts.
Publications
- Co-author and editor, North Carolina Estate Administration Manual, 1984
- Notes and comments published in North Carolina Law Review
- Numerous outlines for lectures and seminars
- Past Articles Editor, Probate and Property, a publication of the Real Property and Probate Section of the American Bar Association
Professional Activities
- Bar Associations: American, North Carolina and Forsyth County Bar Associations
- President of the North Carolina Bar Association, 1997-1998
- Past President, Winston-Salem Estate Planning Council
- Fellow and past state chairman, American College of Trust and Estate Counsel
- Past Articles Editor, Probate and Property, a publication of the Real Property and Probate Section of the American Bar Association
- Author and Principal Editor of the North Carolina Estate Administration Manual
- Past Member of the North Carolina State Bar Board of Law Examiners
- Member of the Board of Directors, The Cannon Foundation, Inc., Senior Services Foundation and UNC Law Foundation
- Board of Visitors, Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center
Honors and Awards
- Recognized in The Best Lawyers in America (BL Rankings) in the fields of Trusts and Estates, Tax Law, Litigation – Trusts and Estates, Nonprofit / Charities Law, 1987 – Present
- Recognized in North Carolina Super Lawyers (Thompson Reuters) (2006-2023)
- Recipient of the Distinguished Service Award, Estate Planning and Fiduciary Law Section, North Carolina Bar Association, 2021
- Received the Best Lawyers™ 2010 Trusts and Estates "Lawyer of the Year" award in Greensboro, North Carolina
- Recognized in Business North Carolina magazine’s Legal Elite
Experience
Any result the lawyer or law firm may have achieved on behalf of clients in other matters does not necessarily indicate similar results can be obtained for other clients.
- Ongoing assistance to three generations of a wealthy family which has involved the creation of irrevocable trusts, private family foundations and active gifting.
- Advise client with two large private foundations with regard to estate planning and achieving philanthropic goals.
- Advise corporate trustees with regard to the administration of estates and ongoing trust matters requiring legal opinions or review.
- Represent a family owning a substantial closely-held Subchapter S business; recently assisted with a recapitalization and the transfer of shares to generation-skipping trusts.
- Represent a university in consolidating small endowment funds and modifying large endowment trusts.
