Resilient Estate Planning in the Face of Unexpected Life Events (2025)

Select your fiduciary with care

To develop a resilient estate plan, carefully consider who to name as your fiduciary . Given the duties associated with the position – and in the case of a trustee, the level of discretion connected to a flexible, long-term trust – the choice of who will serve in this role, and the amount of information you provide to this individual or institution at the time you create and execute the plan, might be the most important decision you will make throughout the estate planning process.

First, you should understand what your fiduciary’s responsibilities will be. There are many professional and procedural jobs a fiduciary must complete in addition to the perhaps daunting task of managing family dynamics and requests for distributions. Every state has a different set of laws, but in each state, failing to fulfill one’s fiduciary duties can result in a lawsuit and personal liability.

A fiduciary must review and understand the document by which she is appointed – a last will and testament or a trust agreement. This will likely require some guidance from an attorney in the case of an individual fiduciary. The fiduciary must also identify and understand the assets of the trust or estate because she will be responsible for managing those assets, which may be as simple as hiring a financial advisor to invest cash or as complicated as running an operating business until a competent successor is identified. Therefore, it is important to consider what your assets are and who would be best positioned to manage them in your absence. Filing tax returns and preparing accountings of trust and estate activity also fall to the fiduciary and will likely require professional assistance.

On the “softer” side, a trustee is required to act in the best interests of the beneficiaries, to be impartial to the extent there are conflicting interests among beneficiaries, and to communicate with the beneficiaries. These duties become particularly relevant where a trustee has authority to make discretionary distributions to one or more beneficiaries. Beneficiaries may request distributions, fight among each other about distributions, or have differing opinions on how trust assets should be invested – and the trustee may find herself in the middle of these disagreements.

People often name family members as fiduciaries because it is a common choice and because those are the people we trust most; however, in selecting a fiduciary, it is important to consider not only the professional responsibility and liability associated with the position, but also the dynamic you want the trustee to have with the beneficiaries. It may be a family member, or it may be a corporate fiduciary that will not face personal or emotional angst as a result of its objective decisions.

One option that represents a middle ground is to give a family member you trust the power to remove and replace a corporate trustee. Alternatively, you could name a family member and a corporate fiduciary to serve as co-trustees.

Whatever your decision, it is good practice to communicate with the person or entity you wish to name to ensure that everyone is on the same page about the role and responsibility associated with the job, as well as the values you wish to pass on to future generations through your estate plan.