Bio

Jennifer Johnson is a Senior Director with the Firm, concentrating her practice in estate planning, special needs planning, business succession planning, guardianship, estate administration and elder law. She represents individuals and families at all income levels. Jennifer's practice involves designing and implementing a custom estate plan for each client. Designing the right plan means choosing the right estate planning tools. Jennifer frequently utilizes irrevocable insurance trusts, family limited partnerships, limited liability companies, shareholder agreements, qualified personal residence trusts, grantor retained annuity trusts, intentionally defective grantor trusts, charitable lead trusts and charitable remainder trusts, and revocable and irrevocable trusts utilizing generation skipping transfer tax planning. Additionally, Jennifer handles all aspects of guardianship, probate, estate and trust administration, including funding and liquidity issues, estate and gift tax return preparation and succession planning for beneficiaries. After graduating from law school, Jennifer joined the Milwaukee, Wisconsin office of Quarles & Brady, LLP, where she practiced multi-generational estate and closely held business planning. In 2003, Jennifer became a partner with The Kingsbury Firm, LLC, a boutique estate planning firm serving high net worth families. Looking to give back to the community, Jennifer joined Prairie State Legal Services, Inc. in 2010 as a staff attorney. Prairie State is a non-profit legal services firm that provides free civil legal services to low-income individuals and seniors. At Prairie State, Jennifer worked primarily with seniors and those with disabilities, representing many clients in administrative hearings with the Illinois Department of Human Services and the Social Security Administration. Returning to the for-profit sector in 2012, Jennifer joined American Bank and Trust Company, N.A. as a vice president and trust officer. In this role, Jennifer worked with many special needs trusts, as well as traditional trusts for individuals of all income levels. Jennifer frequently speaks on the topics of special needs planning, estate planning, elder law and Section 529 college savings plans, including presentations at the Kane County Bar Association, DuPage County Bar Association, Annual Wisconsin State Bar Tax School, the Wisconsin Institute of Certified Public Accountants Annual Tax Conference, the Financial Planners Association's Financial Planning Symposium, and the Association of Women Lawyer's Luncheon Seminar Series.