Michelle M. Huhnke, Partner

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• Practice Areas: ESTATE PLANNING AND ADMINISTRATION
  
• MICHELLE M. HUHNKE focuses her practice in the areas of estate planning, estate and trust administration, and charitable planning.
  
  Michelle works with clients and their families to develop estate plans that address varied family circumstances and include efficient estate, gift and generation-skipping tax planning. She helps high net-worth clients minimize transfer tax problems using a wide range of advanced techniques, including family partnerships, leveraged and discounted gifts and various gift trusts. She routinely helps clients administer estates and trusts by preparing federal estate tax returns and advising fiduciaries regarding family issues, tax problems, and their duties and liabilities.
  
  Michelle also represents charities and their donors. She advises clients on the use of charitable trusts, private foundations and donor advised funds to foster family philanthropy and maximize the income, estate, and gift tax benefits of charitable giving. She advises charitable foundations and public charities on governance and transactions.
  
  Other areas of Michelle’s practice include asset protection planning and business succession planning. She analyzes gifts and sales of business interests among family members and has prepared various ownership agreements fixing the rights of family members and charities in businesses.
  
  Michelle teaches trusts and estates law at the University of Chicago Law School. She is also a lecturer for the Investment Management Consultants Association for their program at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and has lectured for the Illinois Institute of Continuing Legal Education.
  
  Before joining Sugar & Felsenthal, Michelle practiced in the Northern Virginia and Washington D.C. areas and she is still licensed to practice law in Virginia, Washington, D.C. and Maryland.
  
  Michelle received her law degree with honors from the National Law Center at George Washington University and her undergraduate degree magna cum laude from Barnard College.
  
• Bar Admissions:
  
  Illinois (2007)
  
  Maryland (2005)
  
  District of Columbia (1996)
  
  Virgina (1995)
  
• Memberships:
  
  Illinois State Bar Association
  
  District of Columbia Bar Association