Fiduciary, Trust, and Estate Litigation

Fiduciary Litigation arises in the context of a dispute among beneficiaries and a fiduciary – a trustee, executor, or agent – over the acts and decisions of the fiduciary. Because Trusts & Estates is a highly specialized area of the law, it is critical to the successful representation of the client that counsel have an extensive background in gift and estate tax, estate planning, trust and estate administration, Fiduciary Advisory Services, and ERISA. Maynard is uniquely qualified to handle fiduciary-related disputes in Alabama and beyond, with 8 estate and business-planning practitioners, 9 full-time fiduciary litigation experts, 7 ERISA practitioners, and 4 ERISA litigators in Birmingham, Huntsville, and Mobile, along with a Fiduciary Advisory Services group that counsels fiduciaries throughout the country.

Our Fiduciary Litigation Practice Group represents fiduciaries in all aspects of risk assessment, pre-litigation evaluation, alternate dispute resolution, litigation avoidance, and, when necessary, litigation. We serve as primary outside counsel for trust departments and trust companies with multi-state footprints. In this role, we manage federal and state-court litigation, including both national class actions and state-law breach of fiduciary duty lawsuits. We also regularly represent individual executors, administrators, trustees, and other fiduciaries, as well as and beneficiaries and charitable and other non-profit organizations. Our expertise includes both personal trust matters, such as claims of breach of fiduciary duty, will contests, and disputes involving estate or trust administration, as well as ERISA-covered matters. In addition, we have extensive experience in defending estate and gift tax audits and pursuing tax-related appeals and litigation. We also have broad experience in arbitration and mediation as alternatives to civil litigation.

In addition to the core breach of fiduciary duty claim, fiduciary disputes can also encompass disputes arising under the laws of commercial and real property transactions, securities, insurance, fraud, and contracts, as well as class action litigation. Accordingly, Maynard's Fiduciary Litigation practice group takes a multi-disciplinary approach, bringing to bear the firm's broad-ranging experience in general litigation and alternate dispute resolution, partnering as appropriate with an additional 7 full-time general litigators with extensive experience representing fiduciaries.

Our comprehensive expertise in multiple substantive areas of law, together with our unparalleled depth of experience in fiduciary representation, equip us to represent our clients with utmost effectiveness in every aspect of their Fiduciary Litigation needs.