Terry L. (T. L.) Turnipseed

Tax, trust and estate planning attorney. Head of Estate and Tax Planning, Alta Trust Company. Former tenured Professor of Law, Syracuse University.

Terry L. Turnipseed, tax, trust and estate attorney

Terry L. Turnipseed, who goes by T. L., has spent more than twenty-five years advising families, fiduciaries and their advisors on estate, gift, generation-skipping and fiduciary income tax planning, advanced trust design and cross-border private client matters. He combines the technical depth of a national-office tax specialist, the drafting discipline of a Covington and Burling estate planner and the explanatory habit of a law professor who taught trusts and estates and estate and gift taxation for eighteen years.

He serves as Head of Estate and Tax Planning at Alta Trust Company, a South Dakota trust company serving ultra-high-net-worth families and their advisory teams, where he designs and oversees dynasty trusts, asset protection trusts and directed trust structures. He also works as contract and of counsel attorney to law firms and private wealth platforms on complex planning, technical memoranda, opinion letters and transfer tax reporting.

He is the author of the Bloomberg BNA Tax Management Portfolio on the spouse's elective share (with Professor Jeffrey Pennell and Christopher Cline), lead author of the Heckerling Institute chapter on elective share and community property planning for modern and migrating couples, co-editor of the book Community, Home and Identity, and author of law review articles on the elective share, community property, deathbed marriages and inheritance-driven adult adoption that have been cited by courts, scholars and the Florida Legislature.

Current roles: Head of Estate and Tax Planning, Alta Trust Company (South Dakota). Contract and of counsel attorney to law firms and private wealth platforms on trusts, estates, tax and cross-border planning.
Admissions: New York; District of Columbia; Supreme Court of the United States. Massachusetts admission pending.
Credentials: J.D. (1995) and LL.M. in Taxation, cum laude (1998), Georgetown University Law Center. Certified Trust and Fiduciary Advisor (CTFA). Harry S. Truman Scholar (1984). National Science Foundation Fellow.
Education: M.S., Nuclear Engineering, and M.S., Technology and Policy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1988). B.S., Nuclear Engineering, summa cum laude, Mississippi State University (1986).
Based in: Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Contact: tl@turnipseed.law · (202) 262-2979

Career

Alta Trust Company, 2025 to present

Head of Estate and Tax Planning. Leads the personal trust business for a South Dakota trust company, including trust acceptance, fiduciary governance, distribution standards and trust protector structures, and works with outside counsel and advisors on multi-state situs and cross-border planning.

Multi-family office, 2023 to 2025

Vice President, Estate Planning and Asset Protection, at a South Florida multi-family office, leading attorneys, CPAs and tax professionals serving ultra-high-net-worth families with multi-state and non-U.S. assets.

Contract and of counsel practice, 2004 to present

Partner-level support to law firms and private wealth platforms: advanced irrevocable trust drafting (GRATs, IDGTs, ILITs, CLATs and CRUTs, DAPTs, QPRTs, dynasty and directed trusts), decanting and nonjudicial settlement agreements, technical memoranda and opinion letters, Forms 706, 709 and 1041, and inbound and outbound planning for international families. Expert witness in estate planning malpractice and fiduciary duty litigation.

Syracuse University College of Law, 2004 to 2023

Tenured Professor of Law and Professor of Engineering and Computer Science. Taught wills, trusts and estates, estate and gift taxation, fiduciary law and charitable planned giving to J.D. and LL.M. students, and published and presented widely on trusts and estates and taxation. Retired in 2023 to return to private practice in Florida.

Covington and Burling LLP, 2000 to 2004

Wealth management and estate planning attorney in Washington, D.C., advising ultra-high-net-worth individuals, family offices and closely held businesses on domestic and cross-border estate planning, asset protection and business succession.

Deloitte and Touche LLP, National Office, 1998 to 2000

Estate, gift and trust taxation specialist in the national tax office in Washington, D.C.

Earlier career

Nuclear engineer by training (B.S., Mississippi State; two M.S. degrees, MIT). Served in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy and at the Nuclear Energy Institute, then practiced energy and regulatory law at Winston and Strawn and Egan and Associates in Washington, D.C.

Areas of work

Estate, gift and generation-skipping transfer tax planning
Fiduciary income taxation (Subchapter J)
South Dakota dynasty, asset protection and directed trusts
Trust modification: decanting and nonjudicial settlement agreements
Elective share and community property planning for migrating couples
Cross-border planning: treaties, foreign trusts and foundations, pre-immigration and expatriation
Charitable planning: CLATs, CRUTs and private foundations
Forms 706, 709 and 1041, including GST allocations and elections
Fiduciary governance, trust protectors and distribution standards
Expert witness and litigation support

Selected writing

One Hundred Percent of Marriages End: Elective Share (and Community Property) Planning for Modern Love and Migrating Couples (lead author), 56th Annual Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning, University of Miami, ch. 9 (2022).
Spouse's Elective Share, Bloomberg BNA Tax Management Portfolio 841-1st (with Jeffrey Pennell and Christopher Cline) (2012).
Community Property v. the Elective Share, 72 Louisiana Law Review 161 (2011).
How Do I Love Thee, Let Me Count the Days: Deathbed Marriages in America, 96 Kentucky Law Journal 275 (2008). The Florida Legislature's 2010 deathbed marriage statute, section 732.805, Florida Statutes, followed recommendations in this article.
Community, Home and Identity (co-editor with Michael Diamond), Ashgate, Association for Law, Property and Society series (2012).

Full list of publications · Presentations · Media appearances