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Cynthia J. Crass
Shareholder
HONORS
Martindale - Hubbell "AV" rated
MEMBERSHIPS
U.S. District Court, Utah 1979
Supreme Court of Utah 1979
Utah State Bar Estate Planning Section--Chair 1998-99
Salt Lake Estate Planning Council--President 1999
EDUCATION
University of Utah, College of Law, J.D. 1979
Associate Editor, Utah Law Review
University of Utah, B.A. 1974
PRACTICE AREAS
Estate Planning
Fiduciary Law
Business Planning
Ms. Crass has an active trusts and estates practice advising clients and preparing estate plans and documents including wills, trusts, powers of attorney, living wills , IUTs, domestic self settled asset protection trusts and defective grantor trusts . These include trust centered gift and sale transactions dealing with seven figure estates. She also handles real estate and business transactions both within and in addition to, estate planning. She advises local fiduciaries in trust interpretation and trust administration as well as handling occasional fiduciary disputes. She also represents fiduciaries as well as trust beneficiaries in judicial proceedings, primarily probates. She speaks frequently and has been quoted in Smart Money magazine on fiduciary law and estate planning.
Ms. Crass has been actively involved in drafting and lobbying for changes to Utah fiduciary and trust tax law. She drafted and was instrumental in passage of the Utah Prudent Investor Rule in 1995. In 2002, she drafted and was instrumental in passage of Utah laws allowing self settled asset protection trusts, advisor directed trusts and dynasty trusts . That work also resulted in changes to Utah trust tax laws which exempted from state tax accumulated income, except Utah source income, in irrevocable trusts.
Because of her legislative expertise and experience, she served as part of the Task Force which studied and drafted the Utah Uniform Trust Code which became law in 2004. She was also served as part of a Utah Task Force studying multidisciplinary practice and making suggested changes in the Utah Code of Professional Responsibility to the Utah Supreme Court.
Prior to coming to the firm , Ms. Crass served as Trust Counsel at First Security Bank advised trust management and officers regarding trust documents, fiduciary responsibility, fiduciary duty and federal and state fiduciary and tax laws. During that tenure she also chaired the Legislative Subcommittee of the Trust Section of the Utah Bankers Association. Ms. Crass has also served as in-house Real Estate Counsel for American Stores Company. | 