Presenter

John Duncan

Partner, Kozusko Harris Duncan

John P.C. Duncan combined his Chicago-based firm, Duncan Associates, on January 1, 2012, with Kozusko Harris Vetter Wareh to form Kozusko Harris Duncan.  John founded Duncan Associates in 2000 to concentrate on the representation of family offices, private trust companies, investment funds and similar family entities and multi-family offices, private banks, boutique trust companies and wealth advisors and managers committed to serving private clients.  John’s work with families and family offices has evolved to include major foci on designing and implementing family office services platforms and trans-generational, trans-formative family governance systems. In 2012, Private Asset Management named John to its “Power 25” list of prominent players in wealth management and family offices who “excel in thought leadership and levels of influence in their respective fields.”  In 2013, his firm, Kozusko Harris Duncan received the PAM Award as the Best Overall Law Firm in wealth management.Over the past 24 years, John has worked with more than 145 ultra-wealthy families (and their advisors) on family strategic structures and family governance, including forming close to half of the regulated Private Trust Companies in the United States.John devotes a significant portion of his professional life to drafting and consulting on legislation to facilitate the development of trust law and the private trust company industry and non-depository trust companies in general, beginning with a model trust company act that has been adopted by nearly half the states.  In addition, he was principal author of New Hampshire’s 2007-2008 trust law revisions, in large measure subsequently adopted by Nevada and Tennessee, propelling all three states into the top five trust law states.  In 2012, John served as a principal draftsman of new and innovative Delaware private trust company legislation and has informally advised the draftspersons of a proposed Florida private trust company act modeled on the New Hampshire and Nevada laws.  John headed the banking and investment practice of the international law firm Jones Day, 1995-1999.  He is a member of the Collaboration for Flourishing Families (Past Chairman, Strategic Planning Committee) and STEP and a graduate of Yale University (B.A. cum laude 1971) and The University of Chicago Law School (J.D. 1974).  John has published and presented extensively in major forums, including in the Spring, 2011 ACTEC Journal, with Anita Sarafa, “Achieve the Promise-and Limit the Risks-of Multi-Participant [Directed] Trusts” and at the Spring, 2013 IPI Forum, “Only When Private Client Families ‘Bespeak’ Their Visions Can They Obtain Truly ‘Bespoke’ Services”.

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