BakerHostetler Adds Wealth Planning Partners to DC Office

Jonathan Forster and Rebecca Manicone join BakerHostetler today as partners on the firm’s private wealth team, based in Washington, D.C. They come to BakerHostetler from Greenberg Traurig LLP.

Both attorneys have decades of experience constructing and executing personalized strategic business and tax plans for successful individuals, families and their businesses. Forster will serve as the private wealth practice team coordinator for the Northeast market to complement the firm’s extensive private wealth offerings in other locations, with the goal of dramatically increasing the firm’s footprint in the Northeast. Forster and Manicone are joining the firm with a group of their colleagues and are already expanding their group’s personnel.

With a focus on personalized client service and innovative solutions, Forster and Manicone have provided tax and business counsel to a wide range of clients, including tax-conscious retiring public company executives, exiting entrepreneurs and titans of the life insurance and investment advisory industries.

“Jon and Rebecca are high profile additions to the firm, where their unique perspective and broad industry experience will complement our already deep bench of advisers,” said Robert Galloway, who leads BakerHostetler’s national private wealth practice.

“These two lawyers are always thinking ahead,” said Jeffrey Paravano, managing partner of the Washington office. “Jon and Rebecca are a natural fit for BakerHostetler, where we pride ourselves on partnering with our clients to help them innovate to achieve their goals.”

Before moving into the law side of wealth planning, Forster was a life insurance professional, an investment manager, an educator and a business founder; he also spent time at the IRS and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Manicone received her B.S. in foreign service from Georgetown University, her J.D. from the Catholic University of America Columbus Law School and her LL.M. from the Georgetown University Law Center.

Forster represents the life insurance industry’s trade association, the Association for Advanced Life Underwriting (AALU), and serves as its chief tax counsel. In part of that role, Forster authors the AALU’s weekly Washington Report, which covers estate planning, executive compensation and income tax matters as they impact the life insurance industry and its products. Forster generally serves as the industry’s bellwether.

“BakerHostetler is incredibly attractive given its commitment to best-in-class personalized service throughout the U.S. in the private wealth and tax arenas; we needed a firm that is investing in our industry, and BakerHostetler is doing just that,” said Forster.

“Jon and I are thrilled to join a firm that is embracing the future of wealth planning,” said Manicone. “BakerHostetler has committed to a technology plan that will vastly improve the client experience. Our clients expect to move away from the traditional, static wealth-planning models that rely on episodic experiences with little ongoing financial analysis; our system is designed not only to change the client experience and mitigate taxes but also to marginalize unnecessary production costs.”

Unlike most big law firms, throughout its more than a century of existence BakerHostetler has had lawyers committed to providing counsel and representation for clients preparing for their own financial future as well as for the future of those closest to them. With private wealth practitioners located across the firm’s offices nationwide, we are uniquely qualified with national, regional and statewide knowledge to help clients with nearly any planning need, including family legacy planning, business succession planning, trust and estate administration, fiduciary representation, and the formation and operation of private trust companies.