

Barbara Grayson
Partner, Private Clients Group
Barbara Grayson is a partner and Midwest Chair of Willkie’s Private Clients Group. She represents high-net-worth individuals and families, family owned businesses, family offices and charitable organizations on a wide range of legal issues related to family owned businesses, private equity investments, proprietary funds, family offices, private trust companies, charitable organizations, multigenerational wealth, governance and succession issues, and fiduciary responsibilities. She has extensive estate planning experience, including structuring solutions for transferring wealth to younger generations and succession planning for complex family situations.
For two years in a row, Chambers High Net Worth has recognized Barbara in the Band 1 category among the leading Private Wealth practitioners in Illinois. The 2022 edition cites that Barbara "delivers the state-of-the-art estate planning,” and one client notes that she “has the ability to decode the labyrinth of legal elements of tax and estate planning such that I can understand them and make informed decision." A past edition states Barbara “is an exceptional attorney that brings an enormous amount of expertise, knowledge, experience, creativity and stability to each and every client relationship.”
Barbara regularly counsels clients through a variety of major life events, such as establishing a family foundation, developing a business succession plan, negotiating premarital agreements, administering the estate of a deceased family member and establishing gift trusts for children or grandchildren.
Barbara’s tax planning experience is focused on gift, estate and generation-skipping transfer taxes. She works with clients to design and implement estate plans, including wills, trusts and lifetime gifts. She also structures partnerships, limited liability companies, corporations, shareholder agreements and buy-sell agreements. She counsels clients regarding sophisticated planning for family businesses, including corporate recapitalizations, corporate governance, intrafamily sales and family partnerships. She also has experience in the international aspects of the estate planning practice.
A sizeable portion of Barbara’s practice focuses on philanthropic matters, including the representation and advising of tax-exempt organizations and the representation of individuals with respect to charitable giving. She has helped clients to establish public charities, private foundations and private operating foundations, and she also counsels clients as to best practices in administering those organizations in light of the complicated tax rules surrounding their governance and permissible activities.
Barbara’s practice also includes probate and trust administration, as well as litigation counseling on contested tax, trust and estate matters. She often represents fiduciaries and individual beneficiaries in the administration of estates and trusts. Barbara has experience in a variety of tax, trust and estate disputes, including controversies over will and trust construction, the impact of premarital agreements and divorce decrees on estate administration, and alleged breaches of fiduciary responsibilities.
Experience
Prior to joining Willkie, Barbara was a partner at another major law firm.
- Best Lawyers in America
Trusts and Estates, 2017-2023
Closely Held Companies and Family Businesses Law, 2023 - Chambers HNW
Private Wealth Law - Illinois, 2018-2022
Private Wealth Law: Central Region – USA, 2022 - National Law Journal
"Trailblazer - Divorce, Trusts & Estates," 2017 - Leading Lawyers Network
Closely and Privately Held Business Law, 2016-2019
Trust, Will and Estate Planning Law, 2016-2019
Barbara is a member of the Economic Club of Chicago and serves on the Board of Trustees for the Chicago Zoological Society, the Goodman Theater Spotlight Advisory Council, the Lyric Opera of Chicago Planned Giving Advisory Council, the Chicago Community Trust Professional Advisory Committee, and the Women in Law Empowerment Forum National Advisory Board.
- Co-Author, “Drafting Trusts to Stand the Test of Time,” Trusts & Estates, November 2019
- Co-Author, “Avoid Private Trust Company Pitfalls,” Trusts & Estates, November 2018
- "Minimize Litigation Risks in Estate Plans,” Trusts & Estates, May 2016
- "What Mom and Dad Really Wanted: Interpreting the Settlor's Intent Within the Trust," Forty-First Notre Dame Tax & Estate Planning Institute, September 17, 2015
Credentials
Education
Harvard Law School, J.D. University of Missouri – Kansas City, B.A.