Bob Louis is a Partner in and Co-Chair of Saul Ewing's Personal Wealth, Estates and Trusts Practice Group. In his practice, Mr. Louis works on various aspects of the process of acquiring, preserving, and passing on the wealth of individual clients and their businesses. He specializes in areas such as executive compensation, retirement plans, employee benefits, and tax and estate planning for these kinds of benefits. As an adjunct to this work, Mr. Louis assists clients in developing family business succession plans, often involving benefit planning, and he also assists them in a wide range of estate planning, including the preparation of wills, trusts, and other estate planning documents to further the process of wealth preservation and transmission. Mr. Louis is also the Editor of Personal Wealth Law News, a law blog hosted by the Firm that reviews developments in areas of the law that help people to accumulate, preserve and pass on wealth.
Mr. Louis has had broad and extensive experience with all types of employee benefits plans, stretching back to the enactment of ERISA in 1974. He has been a member of the Employee Benefits Committee of the American Bar Association Tax Section for more than 30 years.
As a Partner in and Co-Chair of Saul Ewing's Personal Wealth, Estates and Trusts Practice Group, Mr. Louis works on a wide range of matters relating to the preservation and transmission of personal wealth. On behalf of clients, Mr. Louis prepares estate plans and documents carrying out those estate plans that help to preserve wealth, minimize tax liabilities, and bring about the flow of wealth to family members in ways that achieve and support family goals. He specializes in business succession planning as a way of helping to achieve family goals. He also works extensively in planning for the distribution of retirement benefits, often as a part of overall estate planning.
Mr. Louis writes a blog and articles on trusts and estates issues for The Legal Intelligencer.
Mr. Louis is a frequent lecturer and writer on topics relating to employee benefits, estate planning, asset protection planning, and business succession planning. He has spoken at Pennsylvania Bar Association and Pennsylvania Bar Institute programs and is often quoted in national publications on various tax- and benefits-related topics.
Honors and Awards
- Designated a "Pennsylvania Super Lawyer" by Philadelphia magazine and Law & Politics magazine, 2005 to present
Memberships and Affiliations
- Past Chair, Publications Committee, Probate and Trust Law Section, Philadelphia Bar Association
- Vice Chair, Probate and Trusts Law Section, Philadephia Bar Association
- Past Chair, Tax Law Section, Pennsylvania Bar Association
- Taxation Section and Employee Benefits Committee, American Bar Association
- Taxation Section, Philadelphia Bar Association
- Philadelphia Estate Planning Council
- Volunteer and Past President, Board of Directors, Philadelphia Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts
- President, Senior Artists Initiative Board of Directors
- Past President, Friends of Briar Bush
- Past Chairman, Abington Art Center
- Past President, Board of Directors, Abington Township Public Library
- Life Fellow, Pennsylvania Bar Foundation
- Fellow, American College of Tax Counsel
- Fellow, American Bar Foundation
- Harvard Law School Association of Philadelphia
- Board of Managers, Spring Garden Soup Society
- Board of Directors and Treasurer, World Link Foundation
- Founding President, Mid-Atlantic Chapter, Family Firm Institute