Trusts and Estates Operations Associate

Santa Barbara Management; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 85,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive compensation

Medical, dental, and vision coverage

401(k) plan

Parental leave

Unlimited paid vacation

Learning and development stipend

Job summary

Santa Barbara Management seeks a Trusts & Estates Operations Associate to join a growing Chicago team. You ll support trust and estate execution, filings, trackers, and client files so advisors can focus on proactive client strategy and relationships.

You will draft filings, manage onboarding to Riviera, and coordinate with attorneys, paralegals, and external firms while maintaining audit-ready documentation and timely calendars.

Qualifications

• Attention to detail in all trust and estate filings and client records.
• Experience applying trust and estate principles in a fast-paced environment.
• Strong collaboration with attorneys, paralegals and external vendors.
• Ability to design and improve operational processes and checklists.

Responsibilities

• Draft trust certifications, filings, and maintain term records in real time.
• Prepare gift tax returns and audit-ready transaction binders.
• Coordinate client onboarding and use Riviera to support wealth operations.
• Maintain calendars for annual/quarterly requirements and deadlines.
• Interface with attorneys and service providers on transaction details and documents.

Skills

Attention to detail

Bias to action

Collaborative

Process improvement

Education

J.D. or legal background

Paralegal experience

Estate planning knowledge

Tools

Riviera platform

Office suite

Job description

Companies and investment firms built today are scaling faster than at any time in history, but the founders and investors building the defining businesses of our era face a paradox: the more value they create, the faster the demands and complexity of their own financial lives compound. Santa Barbara Management was founded by a small group of accomplished business builders and investors who lived this problem first-hand and decided to solve it. To make this vision a reality, we have reimagined the family office experience from first principles, relentlessly questioning industry norms.

At Santa Barbara Management, we engineer wealth for exceptional builders and their families. Our innovative model has been painstakingly designed to deliver a fully-integrated, client-aligned solution that combines investments, tax, trusts and estates, financial operations, and strategic finance under one roof, within one team. We have built our firm to be the trusted advisory platform we wish we had as we navigated some of the most complex and consequential financial decisions of our lives.

Today, we serve some of the most accomplished founders and investors of our time – and we’re just getting started.

The Role

SBM's Trusts & Estates practice is built on a promise most firms can't make: that clients get both proactive, strategic advisory counsel and hands-on administration from a single, tightly coordinated team. Our T&E team is focused on building the operating backbone that makes our impressive growth possible, and we're looking for a partner in helping improve, maintain, and support our T&E processes and advisors.

We're hiring a Trusts & Estates Operations Associate to be the first fully dedicated partner to our T&E advisors, who will support trust and estate execution: the transactions, filings, trackers, and client files so our advisors can spend their time fully focused on proactive client strategy and relationships.

What You’ll Do

• Draft trust certifications and other core filings, and maintain current trust terms and officeholder records in real time
• Prepare gift tax returns and maintain complete, audit-ready binders for every transaction and filing, and track remaining exemption amounts as transactions and life events occur
• Sharpen the operational workflow: identify open items in a client's file, coordinate fixes, and close loose ends before they become problems
• Prepare and maintain client calendars for any annual and quarterly requirements
• Draft notes and straightforward legal and operational documents, prepare summaries of documents for attorney review, and assemble materials for client meetings and time-sensitive email responses
• Form entities end to end from EINs, LLC formation, etc.
• Own client onboarding to Riviera, our financial technology platform built to be the command center for family wealth, and ongoing record maintenance, keeping control copies and client files organized and complete
• Interface directly with attorneys, paralegals, and EAs at outside firms and other service providers, serving as a primary point of contact on transaction-and gift-level details

Transactions & Planning Execution

• Coordinate execution and document logistics for trust funding, gifting, and other planning transactions, including retitling of assets
• Track loans and payments, coordinate and docket important dates, and maintain the department's system of annual reminders, including exclusion gifts, trust funding deadlines, valuation requirements, and insurance premiums
• Maintain gifting trackers

Who You Are

You jump in and have a strong bias to action, seeing what needs doing and taking it on. You want to build things, not just execute tasks, and you're inventive, drawn to the harder problem of designing something better. You get energy from building a better tracker, tightening a checklist, or fixing a broken process alongside the Trusts and Estates team.

You're genuinely collaborative and thrive working shoulder to shoulder on a small team in a fast-paced, occasionally ambiguous environment. You communicate proactively when something needs attention.

You have precision and process discipline: trust administration leaves little room for error, and you take pride in getting the details right. You treat every filing and transaction as a chance to get sharper, with an eye toward becoming a true industry expert in trust and estate work.

What We Look For

We're open to several backgrounds, what matters most is attention to detail, integrity, a solutions-oriented mindset, a desire to improve the work and people around you, and a strong conviction in the importance of flawless execution for client success. Strong candidates typically come from one of these paths:

• A J.D. who has decided not to pursue a long-term BigLaw track and wants substantive hands-on trust and estate work.
• A trust officer with 5+ years of experience.
• An experienced T&E paralegal or professional return preparer with prior estate planning or a trust and estate operations background.
• Other legal professionals with broad process and execution expectations and experience.

Whatever your path, you should be comfortable interpreting trust documents, exercising judgment on delivery and process matters, managing your own workload, and jumping in where you're needed. This is a role for someone who wants to build a sustainable, long-term career in client-service oriented trust and estate execution in a fast-paced environment.

What We Offer

• Opportunity to Build Something Different: Santa Barbara Management is reimagining a significant, under-innovated category of financial services. The people who join us now will help shape how we serve our clients, how we build our platform, what this firm becomes and will have an opportunity to help redefine how this industry works.
• Exceptional Colleagues: Join an ambitious and exceptionally talented team led by people who have built category-leading businesses before. The bar is high, and that's the point. We move quickly, are highly collaborative, and care deeply about creating an environment where we make each other better every day.
• Meaningful Scope, Real Impact: SBM is growing quickly. There are no small roles, there’s no entrenched hierarchy, and the opportunities for professional growth are significant.
• A Culture That Takes Care of Its People: Competitive compensation, comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage, a 401(k), paid parental leave for all parents, unlimited paid vacation, and an annual learning and development stipend. We apply the same standard of excellence to how we treat our team as we do to how we serve our clients.
• The Conditions to Do Your Best Work: This role is based in our Chicago office. We work together in person four days a week because the best ideas and the strongest cultures are built in the same room. We also trust our people to manage their time and energy like the professionals they are.

Compensation at SBM reflects the unique background and experience each person brings to the role. The expected base salary range for this position is $85,000-$120,000. Beyond base salary, you will be eligible for a discretionary annual bonus. Candidates with advanced degrees, including a J.D. may fall outside this range.

Santa Barbara Management is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or any other legally protected status. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any of the above characteristics. Santa Barbara Management is enrolled in E-Verify to confirm the identity and employment eligibility of all new employees.