Michelle M. Arruda
Shareholder

Biography

Michelle Arruda is a shareholder and a member of the firm’s Trusts and Estates Practice Group. Michelle provides legal counsel to individuals, families, and business owners on a wide variety of trusts and estates matters, including estate planning, wealth transfer strategies, gift and estate taxes, fiduciary responsibility, and estate and trust administration. In working with her clients, Michelle’s focus is to understand and tailor a plan or solution to meet their unique objectives. Michelle practices primarily out of our Concord, New Hampshire office.

EDUCATION:

Harvard Law School, Juris Doctor (Cum Laude), 1992

Representative Matters

• Represents individuals and couples in formulating and implementing basic and sophisticated estate plans, including wills and trusts and other arrangements designed to meet their tax and non-tax objectives
• Advises beneficiaries of trusts concerning their rights, powers, and interests in those trusts, and also advices individual and corporate fiduciaries – both executors of estates and trustees of trusts – concerning their rights fiduciary obligations
• Assists families in planning for the long-term use and ownership of family real estate
• Provides post-mortem assistance and advice to both estate beneficiaries and fiduciaries, to preserve inherited family wealth

Professional Affiliations

• American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC), Fellow
• New Hampshire Bar Association (Member, Sections on: Taxation; Elder Law, Estate Planning & Probate)
• New Hampshire Estate Planning Council, Member and Past President
• American Bar Association (Member, Sections on: Taxation; Real Property, Trust and Estate Law)

Awards & Honors

• Recently selected by peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America® 2012 in the fields of Elder Law, and Trusts and Estates (Copyright 2011 by Woodward/White, Inc., of Aiken, S.C.). Recognized since 2007
• Recognized as a "New England Super Lawyer" in the practice area of Trusts and Estate Planning, 2007 - 2010
• AV® Rating, the highest rating by Martindale-Hubbell

Community Involvement

• Hopkinton Public Library Foundation, Current Member, Past Treasurer, and Past President of the Board
• New Hampshire Association for the Blind, Board of Directors (2003 – present), Board Chair (2009 to present)
• Making Strides Against Breast Cancer (1996 – present)

Publications

• "The Uniform Trust Code: A New Resource for New (and Old!) Trust Law," New Hampshire Bar Journal, December 2005
• "The Policy and Provisions of the Trust Modernization and Competitiveness Act of 2006," New Hampshire Bar Journal, December 2006

Bar Admissions

• New Hampshire
• North Carolina