Conflict Resolution Stakes are ever high for noted Charleston estate, trust attorney
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By Tom Kirvan
outh Carolina attorney Frank Blanchard will be among the first to debunk any notion that life in the world of estate and probate law is dull and uneventful. In fact, when the time comes to put a bow on his legal career, Blanchard may very well be in position to write a compelling best-seller, recounting some of the choice cases he has handled for the Charlestonbased firm of Rosen Hagood, a member of Primerus since 2004. Money – especially the kind that reaches the rarefied air of seven, eight, and nine figures – has a way of spicing up any legal proceeding, Blanchard has discovered. And Charleston, one of the most historic and charming cities in the South, has become
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somewhat of a magnet for high-profile legal dramas entangling wealthy families that can splinter apart when millions of dollars are at stake. Take a case that Blanchard, with other law partners in the firm, began to handle in 2013 involving the estate plans of former E.F. Hutton president Keith Wellin, a Grand Rapids native who reportedly amassed much of his fortune through a series of shrewd stock investments, including in a Nebraska-based conglomerate called Berkshire Hathaway.
“He bought thousands of Berkshire Hathaway Class A shares in the 1970s for a couple hundred dollars a share that last I looked are now valued at more than $500,000 a share,” said Blanchard.
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With a reported net worth north of $300 million, Wellin had settled in the historic district of downtown Charleston at the time with his fourth wife, whose motives were viewed somewhat suspiciously by her husband’s three children from his first marriage, according to Blanchard. “The children despised their stepmother from the very outset, which probably was reciprocated as the relationship evolved,” said Blanchard.
In an effort to head off any further family discord, Wellin made the decision in January 2013 – a year before his death – to give his wife and each of his children an early estate present: $40 million in cash, to be split evenly among the four.