Attorneys

Ms. Crass has an active trusts and estates practice, advising clients and preparing estate plans and documents, including wills, trusts, powers of attorney, living wills, ILITs, domestic self settled asset protection trusts and defective grantor trusts. These include trust centered gift and sale transactions for seven figure estates. She also handles real estate and business transactions both within, and in addition to, estate planning. She advises fiduciaries in trust interpretation and trust administration. She also represents fiduciaries and beneficiaries in judicial proceedings. She speaks frequently to professional organizations and has been quoted in Smart Money magazine on fiduciary law and estate planning. She is a past Chair of The Utah Bar Estate Planning Section and President of the Salt Lake Estate Planning Council. She is AV rated by Martindale-Hubbell.

Ms. Crass has been actively involved in drafting and lobbying for changes to Utah fiduciary and trust tax law. She drafted and was instrumental in passage of the Utah Prudent Investor Rule in 1995. In 2002, she drafted and was instrumental in passage of Utah laws allowing self settled asset protection trusts, advisor directed trusts and dynasty trusts . That work also resulted in changes to Utah trust tax laws which exempted from Utah tax accumulated income, except Utah source income, in irrevocable trusts.

Because of her legislative expertise and experience, she served as part of the Task Force which studied and drafted the Utah Uniform Trust Code which became law in 2004. She was also served as part of a Task Force studying multidisciplinary practice and making suggested changes in the Utah Code of Professional Responsibility to the Utah Supreme Court.

Prior to coming to the firm, Ms. Crass served as Vice President and Trust Counsel at First Security Bank advising trust management and officers regarding trust documents, fiduciary responsibility, fiduciary duty and federal and state fiduciary and tax laws. During that time she also chaired the Legislative Subcommittee of the Trust Section of the Utah Bankers Association. Ms. Crass has also served as in-house Real Estate Counsel for American Stores Company.