Alison J. Midden

Alison co-chairs the firm’s Private Client and Estate Planning practice groups. She focuses her practice in the areas of:

• Estate planning
• Estate and trust administration
• Guardianships and conservatorships
• Nonprofits

Alison advises clients on estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer taxes, charitable planning, asset-protection planning, and disability planning. She is a trusted adviser to clients in estate and trust court proceedings as well, including will contest litigation and tax controversies.

Alison also works with a variety of tax-exempt corporations and charitable trusts, helping organizations obtain and keep tax-exempt status, and advising on governance, structure, and compliance with federal and state tax law.

• Represents clients in formulating estate plans by drafting Wills, revocable and irrevocable trusts, powers of attorney, healthcare directives, and antenuptial agreements.
• Represents Wisconsin residents in creating Marital Property Agreements to best take advantage of Wisconsin’s Marital Property law.
• Assists families with wealth-transfer strategies, including sales to grantor trusts, creating grantor-retained annuity trusts, generation-skipping transfer tax trusts, charitable trusts, and other estate-planning techniques.
• Aids families in estate and trust administration, representing clients in probate court and fiduciary litigation.
• Represents corporate and individual trustees of variety of irrevocable trusts, assisting trustees in Minnesota and federal tax strategy and compliance.
• Forms new private family foundations and public charities and counsels tax-exempt organizations on governance and administration.
• Courtroom experience includes representing:
  • personal representatives fending off Will challenges;
  • corporate trustees asking for court instruction and construction of trust terms;
  • trustees of court-supervised charitable trusts and non-charitable trusts; and
  • guardians and conservators.

Speeches

• 2022 Probate and Trust Law Section Conference, “10 Facts You Should Know About the Minnesota and Federal Estate Tax,” June 14, 2022

Publications

• “Attention! Action Might Be Needed if You Have GRATs, Life Insurance Trusts, SLATs, QPRTs, or Other Grantor Trusts!”, Taft Law Bulletin, Sept. 30, 2021
• “A Word of Reassurance from Taft’s Estate Planners and Information on Health Care Advance Directives,” Taft Law Bulletin, March 23, 2020
• “Taking of Access: Minnesota Supreme Court Declines to Allow Admission of Evidence of Access Due to Installation of a Median in a Takings Case−County of Anoka v. Blaine Building Corporation, 556 N.W.2d 331 (Minn. 1997),” Author, William Mitchell Law Review, April 2014. 
• “Closing and Administration,” Chapter 7, Minnesota CLE’s Minnesota Estate Administration Deskbook, Author, Several Years.