Skip to content

Overview

Jordan Klein’s broad-based trust and estate practice encompasses all aspects of estate planning, trust and estate administration and settlement, wealth transfer, philanthropy and fiduciary counseling services. His clients include corporate executives, families with dynastic wealth, privately held business owners, professionals, fund managers, family offices and private foundations.

Jordan has significant experience designing creative solutions to achieve his clients’ estate planning objectives and address their concerns. He works closely with individuals, families, family offices and exempt organizations to determine their objectives and to help them design and implement a plan to achieve those objectives, which might include business succession planning; wealth transfer; income, estate and gift tax planning; family governance issues and philanthropic planning.

Jordan advises on various types of wealth transfer plans, including grantor retained annuity trusts, qualified personal residence trusts, irrevocable insurance trusts, sales of assets to clients’ family members or trusts for their benefit, charitable lead trusts and generation-skipping trusts.

He assists clients with their philanthropic endeavors, sometimes utilizing private foundations, donor advised funds, charitable lead trusts, charitable remainder trusts, gift agreements and other similar vehicles.

He also works with clients to better define their business succession and family governance plans. In one instance, Jordan worked with a large family office on its transition to a private trust company, including the creation of a new governance structure to take into account generational and geographic shifts within the family. He has also worked closely with owners of privately held businesses to design and implement control and ownership succession plans.

Education

  • University of Chicago Law School, J.D., cum laude, Order of the Coif
  • University of Pennsylvania, B.S., summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa

Court Admissions

  • U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois

Bar Admissions

  • Illinois

Recognition

  • Named among “Top Lawyers in Illinois” in Trust, Will & Estate Planning Law by the Leading Lawyers Network (2003-2018)
  • Named in Chambers High Net Worth Guide in Private Wealth: Illinois, Central Region and Nationwide (2016-2024)
  • Named in Chambers USA in Wealth Management: Central Region (2010-2016, 2018)
  • Named "Best Lawyer" in Trusts and Estates by The Best Lawyers in America (2015-2025)
  • Named in Who’s Who Legal: Private Client (2015)

Affiliations

  • Certified Public Accountant, Illinois (1986)
  • Member, American Bar Association
  • Member, Chicago Bar Association
  • Member, Planned Giving Committee of The Art Institute of Chicago