Davis, Brown, Koehn, Shors & Roberts, P.C.

Biography

Margaret Van Houten

margaretvanhouten@davisbrownlaw.com

CONCENTRATION

Margaret is a senior shareholder of the Davis Brown Law Firm, having joined the Firm in 2007. She is also the Chair of the Business Division. She has a general practice in but not limited to Estate Planning, Taxation, Trust and Estate Administration, Charitable Organizations, and Employee Benefits.

PROFESSIONAL RECOGNITION

• AV rated by Martindale-Hubbell. An AV certification mark is a significant rating accomplishment - a testament to the fact that a lawyer's peers rank him or her at the highest level of professional excellence.

• The Best Lawyers in America 2010, in the areas of Tax Law, Employee Benefits, and Trust and Estates. Named Best Lawyers' Des Moines Trusts and Estates Lawyer of the Year.

• Iowa Super Lawyers 2009

SUMMARY

Margaret assists individuals and small businesses with their tax, retirement and estate planning, including the succession of closely held businesses. She works with clients to transmit wealth to their intended beneficiaries with the least amount of tax and administrative expense. Some of the tools and techniques she has helped clients implement include the use of revocable living trusts; family owned entities, such as limited partnerships, limited liability companies and S Corporations; trusts for the long term management and protection of family owned assets, including generation skipping transfers; life insurance planning; and sophisticated wealth transfer techniques, such as Grantor Retained Annuity Trusts, Installment Sales to Defective Grantor Trusts; Charitable Trusts and Foundations; She has done a substantial amount of planning for individuals with large retirement plans

Margaret has also represented many clients who want to enter into a pre-marital agreement and has assisted individuals in non-traditional families to achieve all of their estate planning goals. Margaret was instrumental in passage of the Iowa Uniform Premarital Agreement Act in the early 1990’s and is currently working on amendments to that Act which would allow spouse’s to enter into "prenups" after the date of the marriage.

Margaret is admitted to practice in the Iowa Courts, U.S. District Courts for the Northern and Southern Districts of Iowa and the U.S. Tax Court. She earned a B.A. in English, with distinction, Phi Beta Kappa, from Iowa State University in 1974; her J.D., with distinction, from the University of Iowa in 1979; and an LL.M. in taxation from New York University in 1984. Margaret was admitted to the Iowa Bar in 1979.

PUBLICATIONS, SPEECHES, AND SEMINARS

Margaret has been an adjunct professor of law at Drake University College of Law and is a frequent speaker on taxation and estate planning topics.

MEMBERSHIPS

• Chair, Iowa Supreme Court Probate Rules Committee (2006-2008)

• American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC), (1995-present): Member, Technology Committee Estate and Gift Tax Committee , and Iowa State Chair

• American Bar Association, Member, Section of Probate and Trust Law

• Iowa State Bar Association: Section of Probate and Trust Law (section council, 1990-1993, 2006-present);

• Fellow, Iowa State Bar Foundation Iowa Supreme Court Commission on the Unauthorized Practice of Law, 1990-1999 (chair, 1997-1998).

PERSONAL

Margaret is married to Doug Churchill, and they have three children.