Alexander L. Bruin

Alexander L. Bruin is a Partner in HCP’s nationally recognized Estate Planning Group and HCP’s Trust Administration & Probate Group, where he assists clients in all aspects of estate planning, tax planning, and post-death trust and probate administrations.

Mr. Bruin’s estate planning practice focuses on advising and implementing customized estate plans to meet each client’s unique circumstances and planning goals. Mr. Bruin does not believe in the “cookie cutter” estate plan.  Rather, Mr. Bruin engages with his clients through the use of probing questions and active listening to get to the heart of his clients’ planning objectives. Through this process, and with Mr. Bruin’s practical and technical expertise, Mr. Bruin works closely with his clients to produce tailored estate plans that are as unique as the clients who seek them.

Mr. Bruin’s tax planning practice mirrors his belief that one size truly does not fit all. Mr. Bruin has experience with a wide range of tax planning tools and he takes a holistic approach to match his clients’ tax (and non-tax) objectives with the most suitable planning technique. Whether a client’s goal is to minimize federal transfer taxes, to transfer wealth responsibly to younger generations, to protect assets from future creditors, to plan for the succession of a family business, or some combination of all these objectives, Mr. Bruin has the expertise to counsel his clients appropriately and to employ the best strategy under the circumstances. Mr. Bruin’s tax planning strategies frequently include the use of specialized irrevocable trusts such as Defective Grantor Trusts (DGTs), Life Insurance Trusts (ILITs), GRATs, SLATs, CRTs, and QPRTs, as well as a host of other sophisticated tax planning techniques designed to transfer assets in a tax efficient manner. Mr. Bruin’s expertise also includes consulting on the creation of irrevocable trusts in jurisdictions outside of California (such as South Dakota, Delaware, and Nevada).

Mr. Bruin’s trust and probate administration practice regularly involves the representation of surviving spouses, family members, and trusted advisors, as fiduciaries, over the trusts and estates of deceased individuals. Mr. Bruin specializes in assisting the fiduciaries of high-net-worth decedents navigate the arduous and technical task of administering a trust or estate, including marshalling a decedent’s assets, valuing the assets for estate tax purposes, completing, and filing the estate tax return, distributing the assets among the beneficiaries, and everything in between.

Mr. Bruin’s full-service estate planning practice also involves counseling on entity formation; Corporate Transparency Act compliance; tax-exempt organization formation and compliance; individual charitable gifting; and California property tax planning.

Outside of the practice of law, Mr. Bruin enjoys tennis, golf, and playing the drums. More recently, however, Mr. Bruin’s free time is spent with his wife, Amanda, and their rambunctious toddler, Beau, who loves nothing more than trips to the San Diego Zoo and Safari Park, the Birch Aquarium and the San Diego Botanic Garden.

Education

• University of New Mexico
  • B.A. in Philosophy, Class of 2011, cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa
• Loyola Law School, Los Angeles
  • Juris Doctor (J.D.), Class of 2016; and
  • Master of Taxation (LL.M.), Class of 2016, with Honors and Highest Distinction.

Accolades and Awards

• Graduated First Overall in Loyola Law School’s Tax LL.M. Class of 2016.
• Dean’s Honor List (Top 5% GPA) for 3L Year.
• First Honors Award presented by Loyola Law School
  • Six-time recipient for the following courses: Corporate and Partnership Tax; Personal  Income Tax; Tax Practice and Procedure; Advanced Federal Tax Research and Planning; State and Local Taxation; and Tax Policy Colloquium.
    
• Third Place in the 15 Annual American Bar Association (ABA) Law Student Tax Challenge (2016).
• Lynn Witte Scholarship Award presented by L.A. County Bar Association (LACBA) Taxation Section (2017).

• The Many Uses of Grantor Trusts*;
• Tax Reduction with Trusts*;
• Tax Issues in Probate Administration*;
• Non-Grantor Trust Taxation Issues;
• Non-Grantor Trust Taxation: Income, Capital Gains and Distributions;
• Trusts Created for Tax Reduction: What Works (and What Doesn’t);
• Estate Planning in Light of Potential 2021 Tax Reform;
• Use of Non-Trust Assets for Avoiding a California Probate; and
• Use and Implementation of Privacy Trusts for Public Figures (co‑authored with Bradford S. Cohen); published in the May 2019 edition of Los Angeles Lawyer Magazine.

* Denotes an upcoming presentation for 2024.

Professional Associations

• California Lawyers Association: Trusts and Estates Section.
• San Diego County Bar Association: Estate Planning, Trust & Probate Law Section.