Avoiding Contests: Donor Relations When Legal Capacity Becomes an Issue

Download the slides – Avoiding Contests

This presentation will focus on identifying some of the issues that lead to disputes, and ways that planners can minimize the chance that they will inadvertently put the plan they create at risk.  The presentation will include case studies and potential scenarios planners may find themselves navigating as donor capacity becomes an issue. To that end, the presentation will also discuss the two primary legal theories, incapacity and undue influence, that parties litigate in estate and trust disputes, as well as practical tips on what planners can do to help their clients avoid disputes.

Speakers: Megan Watkins and Marcia Inger Navratil

Megan Watkins
Attorney
Osborne, Helman, Knebel & Scott, LLP

Ms. Watkins is an associate of Osborne, Helman, Knebel & Scott, LLP. She focuses her practice in the area of fiduciary litigation, primarily involving trust, estate, and guardianship disputes, representing parties on both sides of the docket.  Ms. Watkins also represents fiduciaries and beneficiaries in connection with probate procedures, trust and estate administration, guardianship administration, and trust terminations and modifications. Additionally, Ms. Watkins handles appeals of all types of civil matters, especially those arising from and involving trusts, estates, wills, probate matters, and guardianships.

Marcia Inger Navratil
Director of Gift Planning Services
University of Texas System

Marcia is the Director of Gift Planning Services for University of Texas System. In this role, Marcia collaborates with and advises advancement and development colleagues across the UT System campuses in their work with donors and professional advisors on planned and complex gifts.

Prior to joining UT System, was on the Gift and Estate Planning team at The University of Texas at Austin, where she served as Director of Gift Planning from 2009-2014, and Interim Executive Director from 2014-2015. At UT Austin, Marcia worked with donors and their professional advisors to develop charitable gifts that met the donor’s philanthropic, personal, and financial goals, as well as requiring some measure of tax, legal, or financial planning. Her work included charitable gift and tax issues related to estates, trusts, life income gifts such as charitable gift annuities and charitable remainder trusts, real estate, oil, gas, and mineral interests, closely held companies, and other complex gift arrangements. Marcia also advised and served UT Austin’s colleges, schools, and non-academic units on issues related to charitable gift planning.

Prior to her work in Gift Planning, Marcia served as the Chief Development Officer for the Texas Advanced Computing Center at UT Austin, and as an Assistant Director of Development at the University of Virginia. She also worked as an associate with the law firm of Morgan, Lewis, and Bockius in Philadelphia. Marcia earned both her law degree and her bachelor’s degree in Art History from the University of Virginia.