About Jim

Jim is both a practitioner and a scholar. His private client practice focuses on estate planning for high net worth individuals. But much of his practice is devoted to representing and advising other professionals and institutions, in Michigan and elsewhere, with respect to complex trust planning and litigation. Among his professional colleagues, Jim is also recognized for his contributions to trust-law reform, nationally as an Elected Member of the American Law Institute and as a  Uniform Law Commissioner and American Bar Association (ABA) Advisor to the ULC  (assigned to drafting committees for the Uniform Directed Trust Act, the Uniform  Fiduciary Income and Principal Act, and the ULC’s Conflict of Laws in Trusts and  Estates project), and in Michigan as the principal author of the Personal Property  Trust Perpetuities Act (2008 Mich. Pub. Act 148) and the State’s undisclosed trusts,  divided trusteeships, and trust decanting statutes. 

Jim’s most recent article, “Power Tools for Choice of Law on Trust Validity” (in the Summer 2024 issue of the ABA’s Real Property, Trust and Estate Law Journal), is a sequel to his contribution to the Tulane/American College of Trust and Estate  Counsel (ACTEC) Symposium on Conflict of Laws in Trusts and Estates published by the Tulane Law Review in 2023. “Power Tools,” which was the subject of a presentation to the State Laws Committee at the ACTEC 2024 Fall Meeting in  Chicago, is Jim’s fourth article on the conflict-of-laws treatment of powers of appointment. But not all of his recent scholarship concerns that subject: Jim’s  “Settlor-Authorized Fiduciary Indifference to Trust Purposes and the Interests of  Beneficiaries under the Uniform Trust Code”—which appeared in the Spring 2020  issue of the Real Property, Trust and Estate Law Journal and, in abbreviated form, in a special 2019 issue of the ACTEC Law Journal celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the Uniform Trust Code—was the subject of a panel discussion in the State Laws  Committee at the 2021 ACTEC Annual Meeting. 

Jim is a past Chairperson of the Probate & Estate Planning Section of the State Bar of Michigan, the inaugural recipient (2024) of the George Gregory Award for outstanding service to the Section, and a former member of the ICLE Probate and Estate Planning Advisory Board. He is a graduate of the Interlochen Arts Academy (Academy Scholarship, 1975). He earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan, his first law degree from the University of Detroit, and an LL.M. (in Taxation) from New York University. He clerked for Hon. Richard C. Wilbur on the United States Tax Court (1985) and taught jurisprudence, taxation, and trusts and estates as an Assistant and (later) Associate Professor of Law at the University of Detroit Mercy (1989–2000, tenured 1996). Jim practices out of the C&T Southfield office.

Clerk Experience

• Hon. Richard C. Wilbur, U.S. Tax Court, Washington, D.C., Law Clerk, 1985

Law Teaching Experience

• University of Detroit Mercy
  • Assoc. Professor of Law, 1994–2000 (tenured 1996)
  • Assistant Professor of Law, 1989–1993
  • Visiting Assistant Professor of Law, 1988–1989
• Wayne State University, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Law, 1987–1988

Education

• Interlochen Arts Academy
  • Academy Scholarship
• University of Michigan, A.B.
  • Honors College
• University of Detroit, J.D.

• New York University, LL.M. (in Taxation)

Professional Recognition and Involvement

• • American Law Institute, Elected Member
    • Restatement of the Law Third, Conflict of Laws, Members Consultative Group, 2025–Present
  • National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (Uniform Law Commission), Commissioner (appointed by Michigan’s bipartisan Legislative Council)
    • Michigan Legislative Liaison, 2020–Present
    • Drafting Committee on Conflict of Laws in Trusts and Estates Act, 2020–Present
    • Drafting Committee on Fundraising through Public Appeals Act, 2018–2019
    • Drafting Committee on Fiduciary Income and Principal Act, 2017–2018
  • American Bar Association (ABA), Member
    • ABA Advisor, Uniform Law Commission Uniform Directed Trust Drafting Committee, 2014–2016
    • Member of the ad hoc committee of the ABA Real Property, Trust and Estate Law Section that drafted the Section’s response to the Treasury Department’s request (IRS Notice 2011-101) for comments on the tax implications of trust decanting, 2012
  • American Bar Foundation, Life Fellow

• • American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC), Fellow
    • Invited presenter, Tulane/ACTEC Academic Symposium on Conflict of Laws in Trusts and Estates, Tulane University School of Law, 2022
    • Legal Education Committee, 2021–Present
    • State Laws Committee, 2014–2016; 2021–Present
  • Probate and Estate Planning Section of the State Bar of Michigan, Member
    • Inaugural recipient of the George Gregory Award for outstanding service to the Section, 2024
    • Past Chairperson.“From the Chairperson,” 43 Mich. Prob. & Est. Plan. J., no. 3, 2024, at 1, 1–5; | “From the Chairperson,” 43 Mich. Prob. & Est. Plan. J., no. 1, 2023, at 1, 1–4
      
    • Council Member, 2006–2015; 2019–Present
    • Uniform Law Commission Liaison, 2017–Present
    • Special Advisor, Uniform Guardianship, Conservatorship, and Other Protective Arrangements Act Committee, 2025–Present
    • Chair, Uniform Community Property Disposition at Death Act Committee, 2022–Present
    • Chair, Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act Committee, 2022–2024
    • Chair, Fiduciary Income and Principal Act Committee, 2018–Present
    • Co-Chair, Nonbanking Entity Trust Powers Committee, 2019–Present
    • Special Advisor, Electronic Wills Committee, 2018–Present
    • Chair, Divided and Directed Trusteeship Committee, 2017–2019
    • Chair, Trust Decanting Legislation Committee, 2010–2012
    • Member, Michigan Trust Code Drafting Committee, 2008–2011
• Michigan Institute of Continuing Legal Education, Probate and Estate Planning Advisory Board, 2017–2020

• Best Lawyers in America
  • Trusts & Estates, 2009–Present
  • Litigation – Trusts & Estates, 2012–Present
  • “2023 Detroit Lawyer of the Year – Trusts and Estates”
  • “2023 Detroit Lawyer of the Year – Litigation – Trusts and Estates”
  • “2019 Detroit Lawyer of the Year – Litigation – Trusts and Estates”
• Leading Lawyers
  • Charter Member, Leading Lawyers Advisor Board, 2013
  • Trust, Will & Estate Planning Law, 2013–Present
  • Tax Law: Individual, 2018–Present
  • “Top 10 Trust, Will & Estate Planning – Michigan Edition 2020”
• Michigan Super Lawyers, 2010–Present
• “Top Ranked,” Chambers High Net Worth (HNW) Guide, 2017–Present
• Martindale-Hubbell, AV Preeminent rating (highest Peer Review rating)
• DBusiness Top Lawyers, 2014–Present

Community Involvement

• American Trust for the British Library, Board of Trustees, 2016–Present
• William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, Clements Associates Board of Governors
• Executive Committee, 2026–Present
• Board Member, 2009–Present
• Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan, Legal/Financial Network Advisory Committee, 2007–Present
• Detroit Institute of Arts, Tannahill Council, 2008–Present
• Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Planned Giving Council, 2015–Present
• Interlochen Center for the Arts
• Trustee Emeritus, 2015–Present
• Board of Trustees, 2006–2015

Most Recent Podcast

“Power Tools for Choice of Law on Trust Validity”

Featuring ACTEC Fellow James P. Spica

(Recorded November 2023)

Link to Podcast – http://actecfoundation.org/podcasts/powers-tools-for-choice-of-law-on-trust-validity/

← Back to all Lawyers