Ms. Margaret Ward Scott

Alston & Bird LLP

Margaret W. Scott leads the firm’s Wealth Planning and Tax-Exempt Organizations Teams. She concentrates her practice on estate planning, fiduciary and tax litigation, estate settlement, trust administration, charitable planning, charitable solicitation law, and exempt organizations. Margaret provides individuals, families, and institutional and individual trustees with advice on tax issues and estate planning strategies. She frequently helps trustees, executors, guardians, and beneficiaries resolve a broad range of estate and trust disputes, many of which involve complex and sophisticated legal and tax issues. 
She serves as President of the Mark and Evelyn Trammell Foundation, a trustee of the Charles Loridans Foundation and the secretary/treasurer of the Vasser Woolley Foundation. She is past chair of the Fiduciary Law and Nonprofit Law Sections of the State Bar of Georgia, past president of the Atlanta Estate Planning Council, and serves on the board of the Chastain Park Conservancy and Emory Law School’s Alumni Board. Margaret founded Alston & Bird’s Wills Program for emergency services personnel and indigent Atlantans and annually provides wills trainings for volunteer attorneys. Margaret was recognized by The Best Lawyers in America© as “Lawyer of the Year” for 2022. 
Margaret earned her B.A. from Duke University in 1996 and her J.D., with honors, from the Emory University School of Law in 2003.