Jonathan Forster and Rebecca Manicone have joined BakerHostetler from Greenberg Traurig as partners in the firm’s private wealth team, based in Washington, DC.
Both attorneys have decades of experience constructing and executing personalised strategic business and tax plans for successful individuals, families and their businesses. Forster will serve as the private wealth practice team coordinator for the Northeast market to complement the firm’s extensive private wealth offerings in other locations, with the goal of dramatically increasing the firm’s footprint in the Northeast. Forster and Manicone are joining the firm with a group of their colleagues and are already expanding their group’s personnel.
With a focus on personalised client service and innovative solutions, Forster and Manicone have provided tax and business counsel to a wide range of clients, including tax-conscious retiring public company executives, exiting entrepreneurs and titans of the life insurance and investment advisory industries.
“Jon and Rebecca are high profile additions to the firm, where their unique perspective and broad industry experience will complement our already deep bench of advisers,” says Robert Galloway, who leads BakerHostetler’s national private wealth practice.
“These two lawyers are always thinking ahead,” says Jeffrey Paravano, managing partner of the Washington office. “Jon and Rebecca are a natural fit for BakerHostetler, where we pride ourselves on partnering with our clients to help them innovate to achieve their goals.”
Before moving into the law side of wealth planning, Forster was a life insurance professional, an investment manager, an educator and a business founder; he also spent time at the IRS and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Manicone received her BS in Foreign Service from Georgetown University, her JD from the Catholic University of America Columbus Law School and her LLM from the Georgetown University Law Center.
Forster represents the life insurance industry’s trade association, the Association for Advanced Life Underwriting (AALU), and serves as its chief tax counsel. In part of that role, Forster authors the AALU’s weekly Washington Report, which covers estate planning, executive compensation and income tax matters as they impact the life insurance industry and its products. Forster generally serves as the industry’s bellwether.
“BakerHostetler is incredibly attractive given its commitment to best-in-class personalised service throughout the US in the private wealth and tax arenas; we needed a firm that is investing in our industry, and BakerHostetler is doing just that,” said Forster.
“Jon and I are thrilled to join a firm that is embracing the future of wealth planning,” says Manicone. “BakerHostetler has committed to a technology plan that will vastly improve the client experience. Our clients expect to move away from the traditional, static wealth-planning models that rely on episodic experiences with little ongoing financial analysis; our system is designed not only to change the client experience and mitigate taxes but also to marginalise unnecessary production costs.”
