Lee-Ford Tritt
David H. Levin Chair in Family Law
Professor of Law
Director, Center for Estate Planning and Director, Estate Planning Practice Program
Associate Director, Center on Children and Families
Email:
Tritt@law.ufl.edu
Phone:
(352) 273-0952
Expertise
Art Law • Business Succession • Charitable Entities and Charitable Giving • Estate Planning • Estates & Trusts • Federal Transfer Taxes (Estate, Gift and GST) • Fiduciary Duties • Legislation • Marriage Equality • Probate and Fiduciary Administration • Statutory Interpretation • Wills •
About
Lee-ford Tritt, NYU School of Law, J.D., LL.M. (taxation) is a law professor and member of the graduate tax faculty at the University of Florida Levin College of Law. In addition, Lee-ford is Director of the Center for Estate Planning and Director of the Estate Planning Practice Certificate Program. Lee-ford’s strong commitment to students and the practice of law has helped earn him Professor of the Year for the academic years 2008/2009; 2009/2010; 2010/2011; 2011/2012 and 2012/2013. In addition, he received the University of Florida’s Presidential Award for Excellence in Education in 2011 and the University of Florida’s Impact Award in 2012.
Lee-ford is a Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel. He was President of the American Association of Law Schools’ Trusts & Estates Division from 2016-2017. In addition, Lee-ford serves as Vice Chair of the American Bar Association (“ABA”) Real Property Trusts & Estates Law Section’s Outreach Committee as well as a Chair of a committee for the Non-Tax Estate Planning Considerations Group. He also is an adviser for the Committee on an Act on the Recovery of Stolen Cultural and Artistic Property for the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws.
Lee-ford has published several books and many academic articles. He is frequently cited as an authority in many newspapers, magazines, news broadcasts, radio shows, and academic articles. Lee-ford is a frequent lecturer across the country on various estate planning and tax issues, including presentations for the ABA’s national meetings, the ABA’s RPTE Law Section’s annual meetings, the ABA’s Tax Section’s annual meetings, the Florida Bar’s RPPTL Section’s annual meetings, the Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning, and the Notre Dame Tax and Estate Planning Institute.
Before joining UF College of Law in 2005, Lee-ford spent eight years in the New York City trusts and estates departments of Davis, Polk & Wardwell and Milbank, Tweed.
Education
LL.M., in Taxation, New York University School of Law;
J.D., New York University School of Law; and
B.A., University of the South
Teaching and Scholarship
Trusts & Estates; Fiduciary Administration; Federal Estate and Gift Taxation; Estate Planning; Property Succession; Income Tax; Probate; Organizational Theory & the Law
Courses
- Estate Planning
- Fiduciary Administration I
- Income Taxation
- Taxation of Gratuitous Transfers
- Trusts and Estates
Publications
Law Review Articles:
Litigation Blues for Red-States Trusts: Judicial Construction Issues for Wills and Trusts, 72 Fla. L. Rev. 841 (2020).
Reimagining the Business Trust as a Sustainable Business Form, 97 Wash. U. L. Rev. 1 (2019)(with Ryan Scott Teschner).
The Rise of Business Trusts in Sustainable Neo-Innovative Economies (forthcoming U. Cin. L. Rev. 2019)(Symposium)(with Ryan Scott Teschner).
The Stranger-to-the Marriage Doctrine, 2019 Wis. L. Rev. 101.
Amazon Delivers Diversity: Geographical and Social Influences on Corporate Embeddedness, 16 Berkeley Bus. L.J. 1 (2019)(with Ryan Scott Teschner).
United States v. Windsor: The Marital Deduction that Changed the Marriage, 42 ACTEC Law J 2001 (2017).
Moving Forward by Looking Back: The Retroactive Application of Obergefell, 2016 Wis. L. Rev. 874 (2017).
The History, Impact, and Future of the Benefit-of-the-Beneficiary Rule, Parts I & II, Koren Est. Tax & Pers. Fin. Plan Update (2015).
Dispatches from the Trenches of America’s Great Gun Trust Wars, 108 Nw. U. L. Rev. 743 (2014).
Windsor’s Wake: Non-Traditional Estate Planning Issues for Non-Traditional Families, 48 U. Miami Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning ¶ 11 (2014 University of Miami).
Promoting Trust in Trusts & Estates, 5 International Journal of Arts & Sciences 751 (2012)(with Michael R. Siebecker).
The Limitations of An Economic Agency Cost Theory of Trust Law, 32 Cardozo L. Rev. 2579 (2011).
- Named one of the top ten Estate & Gift Tax Articles of 2011, 134 Tax Notes 1453 (Mar. 2012).
Technical Correction or Tectonic Shift: Competing Default Rule Theories Under the New Uniform Probate Code, 61 Ala. L. Rev. 273 (2010).
Sperms and Estates: An Unadulterated Functionally Based Approach to Parent-Child Property Succession, 62 SMU L. Rev. 367 (2009).
Liberating Estates Law from the Constraints of Copyright, 38 Rutgers L.J. 109 (2006).
Other Articles
Statutory Copyright Terminations and Artist-Endowed Foundations, National Study of Artist-Endowed Foundations (Aspen Institute 2013).
A Question of Value, The Evolution of Formula Clauses Through the Decades, 47 Real Prop. Trust & Estate L.J. 467 (June 2013)(with Patrick J. Duffy).
What Do Trustees Owe the Remainder Beneficiaries of Revocable Trusts, Real Prop. Trust & Estate Law eReport (June 2013).
Six Important Cases of the Past Year, Real Prop. Trust & Estate Law eReport (June 2012).
Parent-Child Property Succession, Trusts & Estates Magazine, Aug. 2009, at 18.
Books and Book Chapters:
Legislative Approaches to Trust Arbitration in the United States, in Arbitration of Internal Trust Disputes: Issues in National and International Law (S.I. Strong ed.) (Oxford University Press, 2016).
Healy, Gassman, Blattmachr, Tritt, Crotty, Arango and Brown, The Legal Guide to NFA Firearms and Gun Trusts, (Haddon Hall Publishing, 2016).
The Law of Succession: Wills, Trusts, and Estates, contributing chapter author on transfer taxes (Foundation Press 2013).
Tritt, Wright and Weisberg, Florida Probate Code and Related Provisions with Commentary (Aspen Publishers 2010).