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by Robert Burke
Virginia
Business
December,
2003
There
are moments, says Timothy Guare, when the intricacies
of tax law and estate planning don’t seem like
such dry stuff. The clients who seek his help “are
people passing on the product of their life’s work
to the people they care most about.” And when Guare
shows them how they can accomplish their goals, such
as taking care of a surviving spouse or their children,
he often gets “the look” — an expression
of heartfelt thanks. “It’s so rewarding when
you solve these problems for people …” he
says. “You just can’t get looks like that
anywhere else.”
Timothy Guare |
Guare,
37, also enjoys the intellectual challenge, a trait
reflected in his diverse academic background. He earned
a degree in chemistry from the University of Virginia
— not exactly a traditional foundation for a law
career, but Guare says that estate planning has a certain
similarity to the hard sciences. “Science and chemistry
and physics involve problem solving. And estate planning
is very much that way,” he says. “It’s
still a process of listening to a problem, proposing
a solution, testing whether a solution makes sense and
implementing it.”
Guare’s
interest in the estate-planning field began with a summer
job he had while attending Harvard Law School. After
graduating in 1991, Guare spent a year in Roanoke as
a law clerk for U.S. District Court Judge James C. Turk.
The next year he joined the Richmond firm of Mezzullo
and McCandlish and began working with Louis Mezzullo,
59, an experienced estate-planning attorney. Then in
2000 he and Mezzullo launched their firm. “Estate
planning is typically more focused on the individual,”
he says, and is often done by smaller law firms. “We
tend to have a whole lot of clients who we spend a little
bit of time with.”
Guare’s
talents suit the work, says Robert Lee, a senior attorney
and mentor who worked with him for eight years at Mezzullo
and McCandlish. “I’ve been doing this for
35 years and I still call him for advice,” he says.
“It takes I think a real talent just to master
the interrelationships you have to master between the
tax laws, the trust and estate laws, the property laws,
all of the things you’ve got to bring together...
Tim is up there with the best of them.”
The
big topic in estate planning these days is the recent
change in federal tax law, allowing a gradual increase
in the estate tax exemption. There’s a lot of uncertainty
because nobody knows whether Congress will eventually
eliminate the tax permanently or let it return. “I
don’t offer a guess on that,” Guare says.
“I tell them what the law is and what the possibilities
are.”
Explaining
the rules is challenge sometimes, he says. “I struggle
with some of the difficult concepts myself. I also subscribe
to the theory that clients are looking generally for
solutions to their problems. They’re not looking
for us to explain everything there is to know about
estate taxes.” Still, he says, “there’s
great joy when you do have a client who just doesn’t
understand a tax concept and you explain it in a way
that they can. You can see the light go on.”
Guare
gets practice in explaining the concepts in his role
as an adjunct professor at the T.C. Williams School
of Law at the University of Richmond. He and Mezzullo
share the teaching duties over a semester. “That’s
the best learning experience I have. When you... have
to teach a difficult subject you’re forced to organize
it in your own mind in a way you wouldn’t have
to.”
In
January Guare starts a new chapter. Mezzullo will be
leaving the firm to join Richmond-based McGuireWoods
LLP. Mezzullo has been his “mentor from day one,”
Guare says. “It’s very sad for me but it’s
a good move for both of us.”
Return
to Virginia Business - December 2003
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