Art Lawyering Bootcamp: Legacy & Estate Planning (July 2024)

The Center for Art Law’s inaugural Art Lawyering Bootcamp: Legacy & Estate Planning was an in-person, full-day training aimed at preparing lawyers for working with artists and understanding their unique legacy and estate planning needs. The bootcamp was led by veteran art law attorneys specializing in legacy and estate planning.

The Art Lawyering Bootcamp provided participants with foundational legal knowledge related to legacy and estate planning for an artist client. Through a combination of instructional presentations and case studies, participants learned about appraising and archiving the estate, managing the estate’s intellectual property, and the various legacy vehicles available to artists.

Bootcamp participants were given training materials, including presentation slides and an Art Lawyering Bootcamp handbook.

Art Lawyering Bootcamp participants received CLE credits upon the successful completion of the training modules.

Location: DLA Piper (1251 6th Ave, New York, NY 10020)

Training Modules

Module 1: Getting to Know the Artist Client

Artists have unique legacy and estate planning needs. This first module sets the stage for what kinds of questions to ask artists during an intake or consultation. Instructors will share practice tips and strategies for working with artists and understanding the scope of their legacy and estate planning needs.

Module 2: Appraising, Managing & Archiving the Estate

Managing an artist’s estate involves appraisal and archiving. This module explained the value and logistical considerations of those processes.

Module 3: Accounting & Legacy Vehicles

This module provides participants with an overview of different legacy vehicles as well as the pros and cons of each. Tax implications of legacy and estate planning were also explored, including estate tax, charitable gifts and donations, and artist-endowed foundations.

Module 4: Mock Intake with Artists

The final module provided participants with the opportunity to put their training to practice. Artists from the Center for Art Law’s clinics and other organizations joined to share their specific legacy and estate planning needs so that participants could practice asking the right questions and sharing their newly obtained insights.

About the Instructors

Ralph E. Lerner

Ralph E. Lerner has advised and negotiated more public auction sales and private transactions of art over the past 40 years than anyone in the United States, including numerous sales and purchases in excess of $100,000,000—representing collectors, estates, artists, law firms and foundations. Ralph has access to a multitude of supporting experts, including attorneys, appraisers, conservators, custom facilitators, dealers, curators, scholars, museum personnel, and shippers.

He has served as Chairman of the Art Law Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, Chairman of the Fine Arts Committee of the New York State Bar Association and Chairman of the Visual Arts Division of the American Bar Association Forum on Entertainment and Sports Law.

Ralph has served on the Board of the New York Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts and is a nationally acclaimed writer and speaker on the topic of tax planning for collectors and artists. Ralph has dealt with the Internal Revenue Service in the broadest possible manner and includes among his clients many of the foremost artists, collectors and art dealers in America.

Caryn Keppler

Caryn Keppler has extensive experience in all aspects of estate, gift and charitable planning for foreign and domestic individuals, artists and collectors, conventional and alternative families, as well as business succession and continuity planning. Her areas of focus also include representing individuals regarding prenuptial, post-nuptial and domestic partnership agreements and assisting families in planning for their disabled children.

Caryn has represented artists’ foundations, both fiduciaries and beneficiaries in the administration of domestic estates and trusts, as well as estates and trusts with contacts to international jurisdictions, and in litigation in the Surrogate’s Courts. Prior to entering private practice, she was an attorney with the Internal Revenue Service. In her spare time, Caryn is an active lindy-hopper who is rediscovering the American Songbook on her piano.

Matthew Erskine

Matthew Erskine is an approachable, empathic estate and succession planning attorney who creatively and holistically solves families’ unique asset and estate needs.

He is the fourth generation of lawyers known for integrity and personal service. Matt specializes in providing legal and fiduciary services for families, estates and businesses with unique assets or issues.

Handling as many as seven generations of a single family in succession, these unique assets have included multi-million dollar family businesses, numismatic collections, fine art and Americana collections, commercial and residential real estate holdings, family farms and real estate portfolios.

Leah Hokenson

Leah Hokenson is a Managing Director at Baldwin Brothers, LLC. She has a particular interest in art and advises artists, creatives and collectors on wealth management. She believes that wealth can be used to form a more equitable, conscious world. She works with families, estates, trusts and foundations to represent their best interests advising on traditional and unique assets.

Leah is a member of the Professional Advisors to the International Art Market, the Professional Advisors Council of Calvary Hospital, the Professional Advisory Council for American Heart Association. She is a member of the NYC Bar Art Law Committee and was a member of the NYC Bar Estate and Gift Tax Committee. She has lectured for Sotheby’s MFA program, is a volunteer program curator for CUE Teen Collective, and has been a panelist at art and wealth focused events.

Leah received her B.A. from New York University and her J.D. from St. John’s University.