ESTATE PLANNING COUNCIL OF GREATER MIAMI

 

 

Bruce Stone is a shareholder of the firm, Goldman Felcoski & Stone, P.A. His practice consists primarily of estate planning for both domestic and foreign clients. A significant portion of his practice involves disputed or complex problem situations in which he is retained to find creative planning solutions or to serve as expert witness, mediator or arbitrator. Bruce is admitted to practice in Florida. He is a lifelong resident of Florida. He graduated from the University of Florida with high honors in 1971 and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He graduated from the Florida State University College of Law with highest honors in 1973, where he was first in his class and editor in chief of the law review.

 

Bruce is a Fellow and current Treasurer of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, and serves on its Executive Committee and Board of Regents. He is a past chair of the Real Property, Probate and Trust Law Section of The Florida Bar. Bruce is a member of the Joint Editorial Board for Uniform Trust and Estate Acts, which monitors and recommends updates to the Uniform Probate Code, the Uniform Trust Code, and all other trust and estate related uniform laws on a nationwide basis. He is a member of the Advisory Committee of the Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning. He is an Academician in the International Academy of Estate and Trust Law. He has been named as one of the top 10 or top 100 Florida attorneys in all issues of Florida Superlawyers since its publication, and as one of the 45 best trusts and estates attorneys in the United States in the August 1998 issue of Town and Country magazine. He is rated AV Preeminent by Martindale, has been listed in every edition of Best Lawyers of America since 1987, and is rated by Chambers USA in Band 1 for Tax: Estate Planning. In 2001 he received the first ever Friend of the Trust Industry award from the Florida Bankers Association. He was the principal drafter of Florida's legislation in 2000 authorizing dynasty trusts and allowing modification and reformation of irrevocable trusts, and a 2010 statute governing planning for homestead property through the use of irrevocable inter vivos trusts. He has been extensively involved in the drafting of Florida legislation concerning elective share rights of surviving spouses and the administration of trusts.

 

In addition to his practice, Bruce is an adjunct professor at the University of Miami School of Law, where he teaches in the graduate masters program in estate planning. He is a frequent lecturer for organizations such as the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, the American Bar Association, ALI-ABA, the Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning, and the Florida Bar. 

 

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Louis Nostro is the Chairman of the Trusts and Estates Practice Group.  Mr. Nostro specializes in estate planning, with primary emphasis on valuation planning (designed to transfer assets to younger generations with minimal or no transfer tax liability) and charitable planning.  He is certified by the Florida Bar as a specialist in two areas: Taxation and Wills, Trusts and Estates.

Mr. Nostro lectures frequently at estate planning seminars sponsored by various professional groups, including the American Bar Association, the Florida Bar Association, the NYU Tax Institute, the Washington and Oregon Tax Institute and regional estate planning and planned giving councils.  Mr. Nostro has also written extensively in the fields of estate and charitable planning. 

Mr. Nostro served as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Miami Law School Graduate Estate Planning Program for six years, teaching Federal Wealth Transfer Tax Planning to LL.M. students. 

Mr. Nostro is a Fellow of the American College of Trusts & Estates Counsel and a member of the Executive Council of the Real Property, Probate and Trust Law Section of The Florida Bar Association.  He serves as the pro bono legal counsel to The Miami Lighthouse for the Blind.