While in the middle of a phone conversation, Steve Oshins pumped his fist. Oshins, a perpetually multi-tasking trusts and estates lawyer, had one eye glued to the Nevada State Legislature's Web site that morning last spring. It showed that the pioneering bill he'd authored had been signed into law by the governor. "When I hung up the phone, my celebration made
Cuba Gooding Jr.'s celebration after his touchdown in the movie Jerry Maguire look tame," says Oshins.
Oshin's language in Senate Bill 350 created two new and unique estate planning tools: the Nevada restricted limited partnership and restricted limited liability company. Transferring an interest in one of these business entities to a family member, rather than an interest in a standard LLC or LP, can produce an additional transfer-tax valuation discount of between 10% and 35% beyond what may apply for other reasons, such as lack of control or marketability, Oshins says. "This law is the first of its kind," he says, beaming like a proud father.
This is the third progressive, client-friendly Nevada law penned by Oshins, 40. If you suspect that's good for business at Oshins & Associates LLC, the Las Vegas estate law boutique founded by his 67-year-old father Richard, you are right. "It definitely helps because it gives me instant credibility with potential clients as well as advisors," Steve says. "Almost all of our business comes from referrals, either from advisors or from current clients."
Drafting legislation is only one way in which the firm, comprising eight attorneys and nine support staff, continually lands what Richard calls "our share of the really good clients."
"Our clients are the equivalent of those at many of the bigger name law firms around the country, and it's basically from Steve and I doing a lot of speaking and writing," says Richard, a native of Long Island, N.Y., who came to appreciate a nice round of golf after relocating out west in the early 1970s. "That's how we can have the equivalent of a Wall Street practice and yet the quality of life of living in the suburbs of Las Vegas."
Richard is a long-time lecture circuit fixture whose first major article appeared more than 35 years ago in the Journal of Taxation. He sits on the advisory board of the revered New York University Institute on Federal Taxation, an annual conference that attracts tax professionals across the nation.
"Dick Oshins is astounding in his encyclopedic
understanding of wide areas of the tax law and is constantly coming up
with creative ways of using the tax law for the ultra-wealthy. He's
been known for that for years," says Steve Leimberg, CEO of Leimberg
Information Services Inc., a tax news and analysis service. "There
really isn't anybody major in the estate planning profession who
doesn't know Dick Oshins. He's used as a sounding board by some of the
brightest minds in the profession."
Son Steve started writing at a
precocious professional age, snagging a Best Young Author award from
Trusts & Estates magazine while in his 20s. Steve recalls, "I
understood even back then how important marketing is and that an author
is often considered an expert. Writing technical articles on advanced
techniques, speaking on those techniques at national conferences and
authoring laws are all ways to market oneself and, in my opinion, are
the reason I have gotten so many billionaire clients over the years."
The biggest fish aren't necessarily the ones his father covets the most, however. "If you think about it, to a client worth a couple of billion dollars, what you do is almost insignificant, and there's probably somebody who's going to look over your shoulder," Richard says. "I like the client that is in the $20 million to $100 million range. If we can help them pass their business to their family, lower the tax bite and creditor-protect the assets, they are really very appreciative. I like it when I can see that I have improved a family's future."
At The Office
This
isn't one of those stories where the son was destined from birth to
work alongside the father, although while growing up, Steve, like the
scion of many self-employed individuals, certainly spent time at his
father's place of business. "When my kids were 12, 13 years old, they
worked in the office so that they could see what I did," Richard
recalls. In high school during the summers, Steve was the firm's
runner. His duties expanded to include computer work during breaks from
college.