Recent Developments in Estate Planning

Turney P. Berry concentrates his practice in the areas of estate planning, fiduciary matters, and charitable planning. Mr. Berry is Chair of Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs' Trusts, Estates & Personal Planning Service Team and a past member of the firm's Executive Committee.

Mr. Berry is active in the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC), and has served as President of the ACTEC Foundation, Regent of the College, State Chair for Kentucky, Chair of the Estate & Gift Committee, and Chair of the Charitable and Tax Exempt Committee. Currently he serves as Vice Chair of the State Laws Committee, and a member of the Long Range Planning Committee.

As a Uniform Law Commissioner, Mr. Berry currently serves as Co-Chair of the Drafting Committee on Economic Rights of Unmarried Cohabitants Act, Member of the Drafting Committee on Revised Disposition of Community Property Rights at Death Act, Vice-Chair of the Drafting Committee on Conflicts of Laws in Trusts and Estates, and Member of the Joint Editorial Board for Uniform Trust and Estate Acts. He has served as chair of the Uniform Fiduciary Income and Principal Act (UFIPA), chair of the Uniform Power of Appointment Act, Vice Chair of the Drafting Committee on Electronic Wills Act, and as a member of the drafting committees for the Directed Trust Act, the Revised Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, the Trust Decanting Act, the Insurable Interests in Trusts Act, the Premarital and Marital Agreements Act, the Transfer on Death Deeds Act, and the Uniform Probate Code Artificial Reproductive Technology provisions, and an adjunct member of the Fundraising Through Public Appeals Act.

Mr. Berry is a Fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel, a member of the American Law Institute, a member of The International Academy of Estate and Trust Law, a member of the Advisory Council of the Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning, a Member of the Advisory Board of Trusts and Estates Monthly, and a member of the Bloomberg BNA Tax Advisory Board (Estates, Gifts, and Trusts). He serves as Adjunct Professor at the University of Miami Estate Planning LLM Program (teaching Business Succession Planning), and has served as Adjunct Professor at Vanderbilt University, the University of Missouri, and the University of Louisville, and regularly speaks at the nation's leading estate planning conferences. Since 1996, Mr. Berry has served as Co-Chair of the Midwest/Midsouth Estate Planning Institute at the University of Kentucky (the longest continuously run CLE event in Kentucky).

Mr. Berry has been certified as an Accredited Estate Planner® (AEP®) by the National Association of Estate Planners & Councils and is a member of its Estate Planning Hall of Fame [Kentucky does not recognize legal specialties]. He is listed in Woodward/White's The Best Lawyers in America® and in the Kentucky Super Lawyer Magazine in the area of Trusts and Estates.

Mr. Berry is the author or co-author of three Tax Management Portfolios: Estate Tax Deductions - Sections 2053 and 2054; Private Foundations - Self Dealing - Section 4941; and Taxable Expenditures - Section 4945. In addition he is co-author of Trust Law in Kentucky (in progress) and his frequent articles have appeared in numerous journals and magazines. Mr. Berry received the Texas Bar Foundation Outstanding Law Review Article award for an article he co-authored with Paul Lee titled "Retaining, Sustaining and Obtaining Basis" which was published by the Texas Tech Estate Planning and Community Property Law Journal in January 2015

Mr. Berry has been an Articles Editor of The Tax Lawyer and a past chair of the Louisville Bar Association Probate and Estate Planning Section (1989 Section of the Year). He is a member of the Louisville Estate Planning Council, Kentuckiana Planned Giving Council, and an adjunct member of the American Association of Life Underwriters.

Mr. Berry is a member of the Civilian Review and Accountability Board, Chair of the Center for Interfaith Relations, and Earth School/Carbon Nation. He is a member of Louisville Downtown Rotary, and a Member of the Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels. He is a past member of the Board of Directors for the Muhammad Ali Center, Kentucky Opera, Actors Theatre, the Filson Historical Society, the Louisville Science Center, among others, as well as past President of the Daily Bread Sunday School Class at Christ Church United Methodist. Mr. Berry is the recipient of the National Philanthropy Day Baylor Landrum Award and has been recognized as a Distinguished Citizen of Louisville.

A native of Tennessee, Mr. Berry received his B.A. and B.L.S. in 1983 from the University of Memphis and his J.D. in 1986 from Vanderbilt University.