Senior Estate Planning Attorney - Strategic Legacy Architect

Acorn Financial Services; Reston (VA); On-site; USD 250,000 - 350,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Elite compensation package

Leadership role in fiduciary firm

$1.4B+ AUM

Job summary

Acorn Financial Services in Reston, VA seeks a Senior Estate Planning Attorney to serve as the definitive legal authority within our integrated stewardship team. You will design and oversee sophisticated multi-generational wealth plans for ultra-high-net-worth clients, guiding liquidity events and complex transfers.

You will mentor junior attorneys and staff, collaborate with wealth advisors and CPAs, and stay ahead of tax law shifts to deliver legally sound, tax-efficient strategies that

Qualifications

• 15+ years navigating estate, trust, and gift tax law.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement sophisticated estate plans for multi-generational wealth and business owners.
• Guide executives and owners through liquidity events and complex wealth transfers.

Skills

Estate planning

Mentorship

Client relationship building

Tax law knowledge

Job description

The Mission

At Acorn Financial Services, our unyielding focus is on the financial and personal well-being of our clients, managing over $1.4 billion in assets across thousands of accounts. For ultra-high-net-worth individuals, business owners, and corporate executives, basic estate planning is woefully insufficient. They require strategic, impenetrable legacy architecture. As our Senior Estate Planning Attorney, you will serve as the definitive legal authority within our integrated stewardship team. Your mission is to solve the most complex multi-generational wealth transfer challenges, navigate massive liquidity events, and provide professional fiduciary oversight, ensuring our clients' most vital assets are protected across generations.

Who You Are

• You are a master of scale and complexity. You have navigated every conceivable permutation of estate, trust, and gift tax law over the past fifteen-plus years.
• You do not merely solve isolated legal problems; you architect proactive, systemic solutions to prevent them from ever materializing.
• You raise the bar for everyone in the room. You view continuous growth as a professional mandate. You actively mentor junior attorneys, paralegals, and financial advisors, because you believe that elevating the technical competence of the entire firm is the truest mark of leadership.
• You value deep, enduring relationships. You know that real, legacy-defining business is built on trust. You effortlessly build rapport with high-net-worth clients and their families, expertly guiding them through the emotionally fraught complexities of inheritance, succession planning, and wealth transition.
• You lead with sincere candor. When a client's requested strategy exposes them to massive tax inefficiencies or legal vulnerabilities, you do not acquiesce. You address the issue directly, leveraging your profound authority and fiduciary duty to guide them toward optimal, legally sound solutions.

What You Will Do

• Design and seamlessly implement highly sophisticated estate plans, including complex multi-generational planning, family business succession, advanced charitable planning, and robust asset protection strategies.
• Serve as the definitive senior legal voice in highly complex client scenarios, specifically guiding executives and business owners navigating equity compensation, liquidity events, or intricate business sales.
• Oversee, review, and refine the legal strategies executed by junior attorneys and paralegals. Provide the final, authoritative review on highly complex irrevocable trusts and sophisticated tax mitigation structures.
• Work in lockstep with Acorn's managing partners, senior wealth advisors, and in-house CPAs to build unified plans that ensure every single decision is dynamically optimized against both taxes and inflation.
• Stay at the forefront of federal and state tax law shifts, actively educating the broader advisory firm on how impending legislative changes will impact our high-net-worth client base.

How We Measure Success (Outcomes)

• Drive the successful closing, implementation, and retention of complex legacy plans for the firm's top-tier, highest-AUM clients.
• Measurably increase the efficiency of the wealth advisory team by proactively identifying legal vulnerabilities in existing client portfolios and presenting immediate architectural solutions.
• Successfully scale the operational and technical capabilities of the legal support team (junior attorneys and paralegals) through structured mentorship, reducing the bottleneck on senior review time.

What We Offer

We offer a highly visible leadership role within a respected, $1.4B+ AUM fiduciary firm. We provide the operational infrastructure to allow you to do your best work; we handle the operational scale and administrative burden so you can maintain total focus on high-level strategy and client relationships. We operate a culture that rewards high standards, disciplined execution, and winning together as one unified team, backed by an elite compensation and benefits package.