Margaret O. Brown

Margaret (Maggie) is an associate attorney in DeWitt's Madison office practicing with the Trust & Estates practice group. She focuses her practice in the areas of trust and estate planning, administration, and probate law. She enjoys working with clients from all walks of life to ensure their estate planning needs are met and that their loved ones’ trusts and estates are administered quickly, efficiently, and carefully. Her clients range from young, single parents to established business owners and retirees. She enjoys developing comprehensive estate plans that provide her clients with security. No matter how simple, or complex, Maggie prides herself on the ability to communicate with and effectively plan for her clients’ needs and administer their loved ones’ estates.

Whether her clients seek an estate plan, a simple or complex will, a financial or health care powers of attorney, or an intricate trust, she recommends and implements planning techniques designed to meet their specific needs and wishes, while ensuring their estate plan incorporates the most tax advantageous strategies. She also assists clients with reviewing existing plans, making recommendations, and ensuring that the correct account titles and beneficiary designations are in place.

Additionally, Maggie advises clients on pre- and post-nuptial marital agreements, marital property agreements, revocable and irrevocable trusts, special needs trusts and more. For clients who own real estate and businesses, Maggie assists with their succession planning, which may include establishing LLCs, S-Corps, or business trusts.

Maggie understands the need to keep up with legal developments applicable to estate planning, so she regularly attends the University of Miami Law School’s Annual Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning. The institute covers a multitude of topics relevant to estate planners including, but not limited to, the subjects of Marital Deductions, Current Trends in Special Needs and Elder Law, Practical Planning for Special Needs Beneficiaries, Designing and Documenting Charitable Gifts, Directed Trusts, Asset Protection Trusts, Ethics and Privilege Landmines with Gifts and IRS Form 709, and Estate Planning for Retirement Benefits and more.

Maggie is interested in and passionate about elder law. She recognizes there are many powerful and robust planning tools to protect the assets of seniors requiring long-term care and to avoid court intervention in the future. A critically important issue for many seniors and their families, Maggie is continually developing her skills and building her knowledge in the areas of Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security planning.

Medicaid is a joint federal and state program that helps cover medical costs for some people with limited income and resources. It offers benefits not normally covered by Medicare, like nursing home care and personal care services and the laws vary by state.  The high cost of long-term care has made planning a critically important issue for most middle-class seniors and their families.  As such, prospective Medicaid planning works to help organize one’s assets ahead of time and designate who they wish to be in control of their finances, with the expectation that one might need long-term care in the future.

Interesting personal facts about Maggie: While attending Yale University she was a member of the Division I Varsity Women’s Swimming team and served as a copy editor at the Yale Daily News. While studying at Washington University School of Law she received numerous awards, including the F. Hodge O’Neal Corporate Law Prize, the CALI Award in Business Lawyering, a Scholar in Law Award, the Dean's Leadership Award, and a Dean's Service Award. She joined DeWitt in 2021 after serving as a judicial law clerk for the Honorable Brett H. Ludwig of the U.S. District and Bankruptcy Courts for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.