New York Elder Law

Michael S. Kutzin is a partner in the White Plains, New York law firm of McCarthy Fingar LLP. He is the co-chair of its Guardianship Practice and also practices in the areas of Estate Litigation, Estate Planning and Administration and Elder Law. Michael is a graduate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and of New York University School of Law. He was admitted to practice in New York in 1988, and is admitted to practice in the United States Tax Court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. In 2003, Michael testified before the United States Senate Special Committee on Aging on abuses in Adult Guardianships. He is an active member of the New York State Bar Association’s Section on Elder Law and Special Needs and its Section on Trusts & Estates, and has served in leadership positions in committees and task forces for both. For 15 years, Michael was also an adjunct faculty member at New York University’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies, where he taught the Law of Nonprofit Management.

Tara Anne Pleat, Esq., CELA, co-owns the law firm Wilcenski & Pleat PLLC. She practices in the areas of special needs estate planning and administration, traditional estate planning and administration, long-term care planning, and elder law. Tara graduated cum laude from Albany Law School with honors in the Estate Planning concentration and earned her undergraduate degree from the State University of New York at Albany.

Tara is the immediate past Chair of the Elder Law and Special Needs Section of the New York State Bar Association. She is also an active member of the Trusts and Estates Law Section. She is honored to be a member of the Special Needs Alliance, an invitation-only, national network of leading attorneys dedicated to the practice of disability and public benefits law, where she serves on the Board of Directors. She is also a Member of the Academy of Special Needs Planners and the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys.

In March of 2016, Tara was elected as a Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC). ACTEC Fellows are selected on the basis of experience, professional reputation and ability in the fields of trusts and estates and on the basis of having made substantial contributions to these fields through lecturing, writing, teaching and bar activities.

In the fall of 2012, Tara was appointed as an adjunct professor of law at Albany Law School, where she teaches a course in the spring semester on estate and financial planning for the elderly and individuals with special needs.