Sam Donaldson [J.D. University of Arizona; LL.M. (Taxation) University of Florida] is a Professor of Law at Georgia State University in Atlanta. Prior to joining the Georgia State faculty in 2012, he was on the faculty at the University of Washington School of Law in Seattle for 13 years. During his tenure at the University of Washington, he was a five-time recipient of the Philip A. Trautman Professor of the Year award from the School of Law’s Student Bar Association. Professor Donaldson served for two years as Associate Dean for Academic Administration and for six years as the Director of the law school’s Graduate Program in Taxation. He teaches a number of tax and estate planning courses, as well as courses in the areas of property, commercial law and professional responsibility.

Professor Donaldson is an Academic Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC) and a member of the Bar in Washington, Oregon, and Arizona. Among his scholarly works, he is a co-author of the popular West casebook, Federal Income Tax: A Contemporary Approach, and a co-author of the Price on Contemporary Estate Planning treatise published by Wolters Kluwer. Professor Donaldson has served as the Harry R. Horrow Visiting Professor of International Law at Northwestern University and a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law.

An amateur crossword constructor, his puzzles have been published in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and other outlets. A perennial contender for People Magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” honor, Professor Donaldson was recently notified by email of his selection to receive substantial sums of money from high-level Nigerian business officials in exchange for his bank account information.

Laurelle M. Gutierrez has a diverse practice representing high-net-worth individuals and their families with respect to all aspects of gift, estate and generation-skipping wealth-transfer tax planning, as well as trust and estate administration.

Laurelle has extensive experience in the design and implementation of sophisticated intergenerational wealth-transfer planning strategies. She advises domestic and multinational high-net-worth clients and families to develop and orchestrate innovative solutions around wealth transfer, philanthropic giving and multifaceted estate planning needs. She has advised trustees and executors with complex probate and trust administrations, including successfully representing clients in estate tax and gift tax audits.

While in law school, Laurelle served on the University of San Francisco Law Review. She frequently writes and speaks on sophisticated estate planning and fiduciary income tax issues for professional organizations, including the American Law Institute, the Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning, the State Bar of California and CalCPA.