DAVID A. HANDLER leads the Trusts and Estates Practice
Group of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. David is a fellow of the American College of
Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC), and a member of the NAEPC Estate Planning Hall
of Fame as an Accredited Estate Planner (Distinguished), the Chicago Estate
Planning Council, and the professional advisory committees of several non-profit
organizations. He is the author of numerous articles in estate planning and
taxation journals, and writes the monthly “tax update” column for Trusts &
Estates Magazine. He is one of only about 20 U.S. lawyers ranked in “Band 1” by
Chambers USA in the Private Wealth category, is listed in The Best Lawyers in
America©, (Trusts and Estates) and its 2016, 2019 and 2025 Trusts and Estates
“Chicago Lawyer of the Year”. David is a co-author of The Complete Estate
Planning Sourcebook (published by Wolters Kluwer). He is a frequent lecturer at
professional education seminars. David is a graduate of Northwestern University
Pritzker School of Law and received a B.S. Degree in Finance with highest honors
from the University of Illinois Gies College of Business.
Ryan James Boyle is a Senior Vice President and Chief U.S.
Economist within the Global Risk Management division of Northern Trust. In this
role, Ryan is responsible for briefing clients and partners on the economy and
business conditions, supporting internal stress testing and capital allocation
processes, and publishing economic commentaries. Prior to joining Northern
Trust, Ryan held multiple management roles at TransUnion. He researched and
reported on trends and key topics in the consumer credit industry, and he led
initiatives to improve the breadth, depth, and quality of data reported on
consumer files. Before TransUnion, Ryan worked as an economic consultant at
Navigant Consulting, supporting expert testimony in competition and securities
litigation. He started his career as a business analyst at ABN AMRO/LaSalle
Bank. Ryan holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business
and a bachelor’s degree in computer science, with highest honors, from DePaul
University. In addition, Ryan completed the Graduate School of Banking at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Brian Whitlock is a failure at retirement. Although
he retired from Plante Moran nine years, today he finds himself trying to be
useful in many roles. Having worked over the last 47 years as both an attorney
and a CPA, Brian currently serves in an Of Counsel capacity at both Golan
Christie Taglia, LLC (a Chicago Law Firm where he mentors young estate planning
attorneys) and at Sorren, LLC (a private equity national roll-up of CPA firms
where he mentors young CPAs dealing with income and estate tax issues related to
estates and trusts). Over the past 20 years, Brian has written a column in CCH's
Taxes Magazine and taught in the MST Programs at DePaul and University of
Illinois at Urbana Champaign. He recently completed a three year stint at
Northwestern Unversity's Pritzker School of Law where he taught Fiduciary Income
Taxation in the LLM Tax Program. Brian and his wife Nancy live full-time in
downtown Chicago within 5 miles of our three adult children, their spouses, and
our four grandchildren. Despite counseling estate planning clients to "Get their
Ass and their Assets out of Illinois," Brian knows that Nancy will never leave
the grandkids.
Stacy E. Singer is a Senior Vice President, National Practice Leader
for Trust Services at The Northern Trust Company, where she works closely with
trust professionals on all aspects of the delivery of fiduciary services to
clients nationally. She previously served as the National Director of Estate
Settlement Services at Northern. Ms. Singer joined Northern Trust in 2003. Ms.
Singer was previously a Vice President in the Estate Administration Division at
Harris Trust & Savings Bank in Chicago, where she handled the administration
of decedent, minors and disabled estates. Prior to Harris, she was a member of
the estate and succession planning department at Burke, Warren, MacKay &
Serritella, P.C., where she specialized in estate and succession planning
strategies, estate and trust administration and guardianship for minors and
disabled adults. Ms. Singer is the past President of the Board of Directors of
the Chicago Estate Planning Council. She is a Fellow of the American College of
Trust and Estate Counsel, where she serves as Illinois State Chair. She is a
professor in the University of Miami School of Law’s Heckerling Graduate Program
in Estate Planning. Ms. Singer is a regular speaker for the Illinois Institute
of Continuing Legal Education (IICLE) and the American Law Institute (formerly
ALI-ABA), and has previously spoken at the Notre Dame Tax & Estate Planning
Institute, Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning, the Chicago Estate Planning
Council and a broad spectrum of other civic and professional groups, including
the Internal Revenue Service. She has written extensively for numerous
publications, including Trusts & Estates, Advancing Philanthropy, Estate
Planning and numerous IICLE publications. She holds a B.A., with distinction,
from the University of Michigan and received her J.D. from the University of
Michigan Law School in 1992.
Stuart Kohn is a partner in the Trusts & Estates
Group. He concentrates his practice in estate, gift and income tax planning and
business succession planning, and has significant experience with complex estate
and trust administration matters. Stuart also works with clients to design and
implement asset protection strategies. Stuart is a member of the esteemed estate
planning organization, the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC).
ACTEC membership is based on professional reputation, expertise in the fields of
trusts and estates and on the basis of having made substantial contributions to
these fields through lecturing, writing, teaching and bar activities. Stuart is
active in a number of legal organizations and has served as the Chair of the
Executive Committee of the Chicago Bar Association’s Trust Law Committee and
President of the Board of Directors of the Greater North Shore Estate &
Financial Planning Council. He has lectured on advanced estate planning topics
for the ACTEC annual meeting, the American Bar Association Tax Section, Jerry A.
Kasner Estate Planning Symposium, Notre Dame Tax and Estate Planning Institute,
Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education, the Chicago Bar Association,
and Iowa Academy of Trust and Estate Counsel. Stuart frequently writes on a
variety of asset planning topics. He has written articles which have been
published in the notable Bloomberg BNA's Tax Management Estates, Gifts and
Trusts Journal and the RIA periodical, Business Entities. Stuart has been
recognized individually in Chambers High Net Worth Guide since 2018, with
references noting that he is a “top-tier professional.”