Meet Megan Wernke

Megan believes that each client deserves a tailored estate plan designed by a lawyer who has gotten to know their personal and financial goals.  

Megan's clients are individuals and families with a wide range of estate planning needs.  What they all have in common is the need for an estate planner who is intimately familiar with the complex gift and estate tax laws -- so they don't have to be.  Megan wants her clients to be able to focus on identifying and communicating their non-tax goals, so that she can design a plan integrating those wishes into a tax-efficient structure.

Megan's experience includes:

• Designing and implementing sophisticated estate and lifetime gifting plans
• Advising foreign and multinational families regarding U.S. tax-efficient wealth transfer structures
• Pre- and post-immigration planning for clients across Europe, Africa, Asia, and North America
• Helping clients modernize complex or inefficient estate plans and come into compliance with U.S. tax requirements.
• Advising bona fide residents (Act 22/60 residents) of Puerto Rico
• Succession planning for clients with businesses large and small
• Achieving creditor protection for clients and their heirs
• Probate and trust administration   

Megan has also garnered a strong track record in front of the IRS and Tax Court. She has assisted clients in achieving highly satisfactory outcomes when faced with estate, gift, and fiduciary income tax controversies. Her practice includes ruling requests, voluntary disclosures, audit defense, negotiations with the IRS Office of Appeals, and litigation in the U.S. Tax Court.

Prior to starting Wernke Wealth Law, Megan Wernke was a trusts and estates partner at two larger law firms regularly recognized for their strong estate planning practices.  Her goal in opening her solo practice was to allow her to serve her clients personally at a more cost-efficient rate structure, rather than supervising work done by associates and paralegals whom the clients have not met.

Megan is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School.  She also recently served as adjunct professor and supervising attorney at Howard University School of Law, helping to found and supervise the Estate Planning and Heirs' Property Clinic, and regularly guest lectures at Georgetown University School of Law's Estate Planning Certificate Program.