Brenda Jackson-Cooper

Brenda's clients rely on her for continuing advice across a broad range of estate, gift and generation-skipping tax planning matters and appreciate her resourcefulness in crafting estate plans that strike an effective balance between minimizing taxes and furthering non-tax goals. Brenda is known for listening to each client’s unique concerns and using her proficiency with structuring the exercise of limited powers of appointment and implementing non-judicial trust modification techniques to develop strategies that benefit multiple generations of family members.

A client who has been with the firm for decades recently characterized Brenda as an attorney who "exudes the sort of client-centered thinking and creativity that make for the greatest accomplishment of goals," and a fellow advisor refers to her as, "a really ‘can-do’ lawyer, who always goes the extra mile and can distill complex technical issues into practical commercial advice." 

As part of her practice, Brenda assists individuals who are neither citizens nor residents of the United States with making tax-advantaged arrangements for family members who are U.S. citizens. In addition, clients who are U.S. citizens or residents with non-U.S. holdings, or who wish to benefit family members who hold dual residency in the United States and another country, rely on Brenda to work with non-U.S. counsel to design and implement integrated estate plans and lifetime giving strategies. 

Brenda also has extensive experience with administering large estates, all of which are multi-jurisdictional in nature. The family members of deceased clients find her approach to estate administration both efficient and supportive and appreciate her willingness to educate them about the process as they go through what nearly always is a difficult time. 

Prior to joining the firm in 2011, Brenda practiced for nine years in the Estate Planning Group in the Washington, DC office of an AmLaw 100 firm, where she helped many first generation wealth creators navigate the multi-faceted tax and estate planning involved in exiting their closely held businesses. 

Practice Areas

Education

Vanderbilt University Law School, 2002, JD

Yale University, 1993, BA

Bar & Court Admissions

District of Columbia

Memberships & Affiliations

American Bar Association, Real Property, Trust and Estate Law Section

District of Columbia Bar, Estates, Trusts and Probate Law Section

Honors & Awards

Chambers & Partners High Net Worth Guide 2020 - present

Best Lawyers in America 2024 - present

Super Lawyers 2024

Washingtonian Magazine, Washington, DC’s Best Lawyers: Trusts and Estates, 2020 - present

Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business for Wealth Management: Eastern Region 2007

Ally of Justice Award for pro bono work on behalf of the Human Rights Campaign 2003

Representative Matters

• Participated in the design and implementation of a plan whereby beneficiaries of a terminating GST grandfathered trust transferred trust interests to grantor retained annuity trusts (GRATs) in order to leverage the mortality risk associated with the trust termination date.   

• Assisted a U.S. citizen and his non-citizen spouse with U.S. compliance matters relating to a reorganization of entities holding their non-U.S. personal and real property, followed by a contribution of their shares in the entities to newly created non-U.S. revocable trusts.

• Engaged in extensive post-mortem planning by structuring and implementing a net gift of marital trust income interests in order to reduce the federal and state estate taxes ultimately payable by the beneficiary’s estate.

• Funded GRATs, sold discounted family business assets, made judicious use of client’s deceased spouse’s unused exclusion amount (DSUE) and incorporated planning based on the predeceased ancestor rule to substantially reduce the GST tax payable upon client’s death.

Newsletters

IPB Tax, Trusts & Estates Newsletter November 2023

IPB Tax, Trusts & Estates Newsletter Spring 2023