Recent writing from Royal Law Firm.
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Business Law
Protect Your Pride: Building Communities and Legacies through Business Succession Planning
78% of LGBTQ small business owners have no succession plan. How the right plan protects leadership, operations and wealth so the business, and the legacy, outlives its founder.
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Wealth Planning and Estates
DMX Knew Pain Longer Than He May Have Wanted To: The Choice In Advanced Healthcare Directives
DMX spent a week in intensive care before he died. Why an advance healthcare directive matters at any age, and what yours should say before anyone needs it.
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Business Law
Can social responsibility equal profits? The success of Benefit Corporations tells us “yes”
Younger customers and employees want companies with a purpose. How benefit corporations legally balance profit with people and the planet, and what that asks of the board.
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Wealth Planning and Estates
Britney Spears’ Trust is Toxic; and Her Situation is Anything But Lucky
Britney Spears spent 12 years under a court-run conservatorship. How an estate plan that accounts for incapacity keeps control with the people you choose, not the courts.
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Nonprofit Law
A Will versus a Trust- What’s the Difference
Die without a will or a trust and state law decides who inherits. The basics of intestate succession, and how a will or a trust changes the outcome for your family.
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Nonprofit Law
The Tried and True Strategy of Musk Foundation: This Is No Tesla
The Musk Foundation has given away more than $260 million, mostly in Tesla stock. How foundations, donor-advised funds and charitable trusts turn generosity into strategy.
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Business Law
The Big Rich Town is Tiny: Biden’s Tax Proposal and Small Business
Would the Biden tax proposals hurt your small business? For most owners, probably not. For the few who would feel it, the restructuring moves that limit the impact.
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Business Law
The Nexus between Chanukah and Compliance: Tax Considerations for Growing Software Companies
A holiday app on its way to 200,000 users shows how quickly a growing software company takes on tax obligations in new places, and what to have in order before it does.
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Business Law
All Your Basis Are Belong To What You Paid (Mostly): A Quick View On Basis And Donations
Bought it on sale, donated it at full price? Why a charitable deduction usually follows what you paid, not the sticker price, and the questions that decide the amount.
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Insight
Gratitude in a Time of Distress
A Thanksgiving note to our clients, friends and colleagues on a year of hardship, and the trust, resilience and community that carried us through it.
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Wealth Planning and Estates
Diwali and Estate Planning: When Family, Legacies, and Preserving Traditions Matter
Diwali celebrates light over darkness. Estate planning, at its heart, is how a family carries its traditions, values and business forward from one generation to the next.
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Tax Law
A New Jersey Tax Recipe? A Pizza Topping of Fresh Marijuana Leaves.
New Jersey voted to legalize cannabis, with more than $300 million a year in sales tax at stake. What legalization means for taxes, enforcement and new cannabis businesses.
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Tax Law
DC Lowers Estate Tax Exemption to $4 Million
D.C. cut its estate tax exemption to $4 million. A worked example shows a $10 million estate owing $960,000, and why D.C. residents should revisit their plans.
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Wealth Planning and Estates
Nine Nights to Ponder Synergies: Navigating Legal Barriers in US-India Transactions
A Mumbai street-food brand expanding to the U.S. shows the legal and tax hurdles in US-India deals, and how collaboration across both systems gets them done.
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Wealth Planning and Estates
Probate is Hardly the Story: Chad Boseman’s More than a Million Dollar Legacy
Chadwick Boseman's estate went to probate, and the headlines got it wrong. Why a will does not avoid probate, and how a trust keeps a family's affairs private.
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Wealth Planning and Estates
Better act fast, it’s another election year and another bite at the Estate and Gift Tax
Election years can reshape the estate and gift tax exemption. The year-end gifting and planning moves that put control back in your hands before the rules change.
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Wealth Planning and Estates
What is Estate Planning ?
"Estate planning? But we rent!" Why you don't need to own property, or be wealthy, to need a plan, especially when a child is on the way.
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Wealth Planning and Estates
California Millionaires Tax and Wealth Tax
California proposed a millionaire tax and a tax on worldwide wealth to close a $54 billion budget gap. What AB 1253 and AB 2088 would mean for high earners.
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Nonprofit Law
Nonprofit Grants Hollywood, Tuition-Free Admission To… Jail
The college admissions scandal ran its bribes through a registered charity. What the foundation's own tax return reveals, and what it means for the donors' deductions.
Selected commentary from Priya Royal's Forbes column.
Hedge Funds, IP, and Offshore Investments: Optimal Structuring
On the structural choices that determine whether IP, fund, and offshore vehicles work with — or against — each other when capital and innovation cross borders.
The Hidden Value of the Creative: IP Asset Protection and Succession
On the systematic undervaluation of creative and innovation IP in succession planning, and the structures that preserve, rather than dissipate, that value across generations.
Missing in AI Action: Tax Risk for Investors in Intellectual Property
On the tax exposure investors are taking on AI-related IP positions — often without realizing they have taken it on — and the structural choices that mitigate it.
Bloomberg Tax, Wealth Management, NJ Law Journal, ABA.
Lead authorship on governance for modern families.
ALIGNED: A Governance Framework for Modern Families
Lead author. A framework for decision rights, continuity, and intra-family alignment across generations of operating wealth.
Bloomberg Tax
Long-form commentary on cross-border estate, gift, and trust planning; foreign-trust reporting; family-business succession; and FBAR enforcement (2018–2024).
Wealth Management
Commentary on multinational estates, FBAR penalty litigation, and cross-border wealth-builder planning (2024).
New Jersey Law Journal
Selected articles on estate planning for art collectors, digital and cryptocurrency assets, rights of publicity, and family-business succession.
ABA · Heritage Auctions Trusts & Estates Journal
Articles on estate planning at the intersection of high-value collections, rights of publicity, and family-business succession.