What makes an estate planning LLM? Forum

[southernlawstudent]

I'm a graduate of law school. I have taken the bar. I am in the estate planning field. In my neck of the woods, it is extremely common for estate planners to have an LLM in tax, but this is not always the case. All of them got their LLMs before the tuition inflation. That's great for them but I cannot justify spending $80k on an LLM from NYU just to pretty up some firm's web page. I have zero interest in corporate. But I need to know the information from the degrees. I've snooped through NYU and FL Levin's LLM in tax programs and can't find too much besides general course names. I need more than that if I'm going to advise a client.

I know the basics of estate and gift taxation, as well as some basic trust taxation, but nothing like the in-depth knowledge I need. I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for the sorts of resources I would need to learn about the taxation issues in estate planning and, more generally, wealth transfers. Areas I'm interested in learning about are:
Estate taxation
Trust Taxation
Gift Taxation
GST
Charitable Giving
Charitable Organizations

I'm interested in the federal aspects of the above topics. I'm hoping I'm not alone in this need, and I was wondering if any other graduate TLSers might know and be willing to share information about how to learn about these areas of law. Thanks in advance.

[CanadianWolf]

Does the Univ. of Miami still offer an LLM in Estate Planning ?

CLU & CFP coursework also cover much of this material.

A lot of this work involves charitable organizations which publish their own guides to wealth transfer for charitable purposes

Many law school LLMs offer coursework in these areas--no need (if you already have clients & a firm affiliation) to limit yourself to the programs offered by NYU & Florida.

[southernlawstudent]

Does the Univ. of Miami still offer an LLM in Estate Planning ?

CLU & CFP coursework also cover much of this material.

A lot of this work involves charitable organizations which publish their own guides to wealth transfer for charitable purposes

Many law school LLMs offer coursework in these areas--no need (if you already have clients & a firm affiliation) to limit yourself to the programs offered by NYU & Florida.

Hey, thanks for responding. The goal at this point is to cover as much of the material as possible without springing for an LLM. I used 80k in reference to NYU, but I meant in general rather than just the top tax schools. I know it's perfectly possible to get an LLM using online classes, but I need this knowledge in a faster time frame than two-four years (and hopefully cheaper than a full degree. Online isn't much cheaper). Do you know any good reference materials or starting points to learn about it?