Basic Fiduciary Law 101

Ms. Leslie Alyson Graham Related Seminars and Products

Willis Investment Counsel

Alyson Graham is a Trust and Estate Specialist for Willis Investment Counsel (“WIC”), a 45-year-old independent investment management firm in Gainesville, Georgia.  Supporting a holistic approach to wealth planning, Alyson serves as a resource to clients and their advisors to help clients understand, identify and achieve their estate and wealth planning goals. 

Prior to joining WIC, Alyson served as Senior Vice President and Head of Personal Trust Services at Ameris Bank.  Prior to that, Alyson practiced trusts and estates law for over a decade with firms including Smith, Gambrell & Russell in Atlanta and Stewart, Melvin & Frost in Gainesville, specializing in sophisticated estate and tax planning and estate administration for high net worth and ultra high net worth individuals and their families.  

Alyson serves as Secretary of the Fiduciary Law Section of the State Bar of Georgia, and as a member of the Section’s Legislative and Code Revision Committees. She is a graduate of the inaugural class of the Southeast Fellows Institute of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC) and a member of the Real Property, Probate & Trust Law Section of the Florida Bar.  Alyson earned her law degree, magna cum laude, from Georgia State University College of Law and her LL.M. in taxation from New York University School of Law.

Ms. Lauren Albanese Bryant Related Seminars and Products

Lauren Bryant is the founder of the Law Office of Lauren A. Bryant, and she focuses her practice on probate, guardianship, and estate planning matters. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of Georgia with degrees in Psychology and Criminal Justice and earned her J.D. from Georgia State University College of Law in 2008. After nearly 15 years with a small firm that evolved into a probate-focused practice, Lauren opened her own firm in 2021.

Before law school, Lauren worked as a social worker advocating for adults with developmental disabilities, an experience that continues to shape her practice. She has since served as a Guardian ad Litem for probate courts across Georgia and for the Northern District of Georgia, representing the interests of children and adults with special needs in guardianship, conservatorship, and probate litigation matters. From 2022 to 2023, Lauren served as a part-time judge in the Fulton County Probate Court, adjudicating emergency and permanent guardianship and conservatorship cases, and in 2023 she was appointed to a legislative advisory panel focused on improving Georgia’s guardianship laws. She is also a certified mediator and participates in Georgia’s probate mediation initiative (she's even in the training video for all new probate mediators!).

Lauren has been recognized by the Georgia Pro Bono Project, named to Georgia Trend’s “Legal Elite,” and selected as a Super Lawyers Rising Star. She is a frequent CLE speaker on probate and Guardian ad Litem topics and has extensive experience in complex estate planning, with a particular passion for special needs trusts.

Lauren lives in Suwanee with her husband, three children, and their pets. When she finds free time, she enjoys true crime podcasts, British crime dramas, and local thrift store adventures.

Mr. Tyson David Willis Related Seminars and Products

Arnall Golden Gregory LLP

Tyson Willis is a senior associate at Arnall Golden Gregory in Atlanta, where his practice focuses on wealth transfer planning for ultra high net worth clients, charitable planning, and estate tax planning for carried and promoted interests.  Tyson is a graduate of Brigham Young University and Harvard Law School.  He received his LLM in taxation at New York University.  He is a member of the Atlanta Estate Planning Council and is a frequent speaker and author on estate planning topics, including tax-efficient gifting, estate planning after the 2017 tax reform, and planning to minimize the impact of spousal elective share laws.

Ms. Shelly Nixon Donaldson Related Seminars and Products

Cumberland Trust

Shelly Donaldson serves as the Vice President and Business Development Officer based in Cumberland Trust’s Atlanta office.  In her role, Shelly connects individuals, families and their financial, legal, and tax advisors with Cumberland Trust’s high caliber trust and estate administration services. 

Shelly has been a practicing attorney for most of her career and has 20+ years of experience in estate planning, tax and corporate law —specializing in estate planning for high-net-worth clients and families. She has particular expertise in tax and estate planning involving real estate, closely held business entities and planning for a family member with a disability (Special Needs Planning).

Prior to joining Cumberland Trust, Shelly founded The Donaldson Law Firm following experience at other firms including Lefkoff, Duncan, Grimes, McSwain & Hass, P.C. and Morris, Manning & Martin, LLP.

Shelly served on the Executive Committee of the Georgia Bar Association Fiduciary Law Section and was a past chair of the Atlanta Bar Estate Planning and Probate Section and past board member for the Atlanta Estate Planning Council.

She is a current board member and secretary of the Atlanta Lab Rescue and on the Advisory Board for the Special Olympics of Georgia.  She is also a past board member of AADD (now The Bobby Dodd Institute), a nonprofit that helps individuals living with a disability succeed at work, in the community and in life.

Shelly graduated cum laude from the Fredric G. Levin College of Law at the University of Florida, where she also served as an editor of the Law Review. She holds a B.B.A. in finance from Auburn University.

Mr. Robert C. Port Related Seminars and Products

Gaslowitz Frankel LLC

Robert C. Port is a partner with Gaslowitz Frankel LLC, Atlanta, Georgia. The firm focuses on fiduciary litigation arising from disputes related to trusts, wills, estates, guardianships, conservatorships, partnerships, closely held corporations, and securities and investment fraud. 

Robert is a member of the Georgia and Tennessee Bars. He is admitted in the Northern, Middle, and Southern Federal Districts of Georgia, the U.S. Courts of Appeal for the Eleventh and Third Circuits, and the U.S. Supreme Court. He is a member of the Georgia Bar, the Atlanta Bar Association, and the American Bar Association (ABA).

Robert is the Editor of “Georgia Business Litigation,” a one-volume, comprehensive guide to many of the issues business litigators often encounter, including officer, director, shareholder, partnership and LLC disputes; securities litigation; non-compete and trade secret issues; RICO; intellectual property issues; business torts; insurance liability; fraudulent transfers; employment litigation; bankruptcy, and the ever-increasing use of arbitration.  https://www.lawcatalog.com/georgia-business-litigation.html

Robert has litigated cases in federal and state courts in Georgia and throughout the country, as well as arbitrated before the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), and the American Arbitration Association (AAA). He also serves as a FINRA chair-qualified arbitrator, an arbitrator for both the Consumer and Commercial Panels of the AAA, and serves as an arbitrator for the Georgia State Bar’s Fee Arbitration Program.

Robert is a frequent speaker on estate and trust litigation, securities litigation, and securities arbitration before a variety of audiences, including the Georgia Institute of Continuing Legal Education (ICLE), the Atlanta Bar Association, The National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA), the Georgia Society of CPAs, the National Business Institute (NBI), and the Public Investors Arbitration Bar Association (PIABA). He has also published numerous articles on fiduciary litigation, securities law, and other legal topics in the Georgia Bar Journal and other publications.

Robert attended the University of North Carolina, where he obtained a B.A., with Honors, in 1979, and a J.D., with Honors, in 1983. Following law school, he was a Law Clerk for Hon. Eugene N. Gordon, Senior United States District Court Judge for the Middle District of North Carolina.