• Family Values Or Mission Statements. Family offices and other advisors are increasingly seeking ways to promote the three C’s—collaboration, consensus and civility—between family members of multiple generations. While these statements often concern issues unrelated to the family business, they should include directives as to how families want their corporate legacies to be maintained. Use of this mechanism can enable families to reach agreements regarding shared values in a friendlier context, which can then serve as reminders when future organizational documents encode these values in the more stressful venue of a boardroom or attorney’s office.
While such a document would likely not be dispositive, it would serve as evidence of the decedent’s intent.
David Seidman is a principal at Fischel & Kahn Ltd., where he works with his colleagues to represent privately owned companies, their owners and executives. His office is in Chicago.