Practice Focus
Dennis Delaney has over 15 years of investment and estate planning experience. As a partner at the firm, he serves as an individual trustee and executor. In this role, Dennis oversees trusts, estates, and investment programs for individuals, families, and charities. As a Senior Vice President at Hemenway Trust Company, he is also key to the firm’s corporate trustee offerings as well as investment management services for retirement accounts.
Admitted to the bar in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and as an ACTEC Fellow, Dennis provides sophisticated estate planning services for affluent individuals and families throughout the country. This includes business succession planning, preserving family lands, and charitable planning. In addition, clients rely on Dennis’s trusted counsel to enhance and protect their wealth and legacies in other ways, such as:
• Perpetual dynasty trusts
• Comprehensive asset protection programs
• Income and estate tax minimization techniques
• Strategies for concentrated wealth holdings and unique assets
Representative Experience
- Oversees business succession and estate planning for a family owning a $200 million private company.
- Eliminated many millions of dollars in transfer taxes for clients by creating and administering dozens of grantor-retained annuity trusts.
- Led several land protection projects throughout the country using a variety of sophisticated techniques to protect environmentally sensitive land from development, save millions of dollars in transfer taxes, and maximize after-tax values for owners and their families.
- Created and administer private foundations, charitable lead trusts, and charitable remainder trusts involving tens of millions of dollars in funding.
Activities and Publications
- Fellow, American College of Trust and Estate Council (ACTEC)
- Past co-Chair, Estate Planning Committee, Boston Bar Association’s Trusts & Estates Section.
- Authored articles published in Financial Planning, Banker & Tradesman, Mass High Tech Journal, Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, The Harvard Press, The Virginia Tax Review, The Monthly Digest of Tax Articles, and Exhibit A.
- Author of chapters in various books published by Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education, including Drafting Irrevocable Trusts in Massachusetts as well as Understanding and Using Trusts.
- Authored Hemenway & Barnes client advisories including “Trusts for Pets Now Allowed in Massachusetts” (January 2011) and “Who Will Inherit Your Passwords?” (July 2010)
Select Speaking Engagements
- "The Family Enterprise: One Family’s Story” (Executive Conference Center, Babson College, October 27, 2011)
- “Managing the Complex Case of the Family Enterprise” (Family Firm Institute, October 14, 2011)
- “Estate Administration and Post-Mortem Estate Planning" (MCLE, May 25, 2011)
- “The Generation Skipping Transfer Tax in 2010 and Beyond” (Boston Probate Forum, December 1, 2010)
- “Representing Estate and Trust Beneficiaries and Fiduciaries” (ALI-ABA, July 15, 2010)
- "Trusts & Estates Year in Review” (Boston Bar Association, June 15, 2009)
- “Qualified Personal Residence Trusts” MCLE (April 29, 2009)
- “Nuts & Bolts of International Estate Planning” (Boston Bar Association, October 28, 2008)
- “Trusts & Estates Mid-Year Review” (Boston Bar Association, December 16, 2007)
- “Drafting Tax Allocation Clauses” (Boston Bar Association, June 22, 2006)
Community Involvement
- Board Member, Family Business Association
- Counsel, and immediate past President and Trustee, Harvard Conservation Trust. Dennis advises donors on land conservation techniques and the Board of Trustees on nonprofit law and governance issues
- Active in the sport of triathlon, including past Director of Team Psycho Ltd. Dennis helped create and obtain tax-exempt status for the Elite Development Program, which assists young athletes qualify for the U.S. Olympic Triathlon team and sent one of its athletes to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
