Lecture Series

Lloyd Leva Plaine was an accomplished Washington, D.C., estate planning attorney who died too young on February 2, 2010. Her many friends and colleagues formed the Lloyd Leva Plaine Memorial Fund at The ACTEC Foundation to establish a Lecture Series in her honor. The lectures recognize and celebrate Lloyd’s commitment to her profession and to perpetuate the spirit, interests, standards, and contributions reflected in her life. During her career, she served as the Chair of the Section of Real Property, Trust and Estate (RPTE) Law of the American Bar Association (the first woman chair), a member of the Council of the Section of Taxation of the American Bar Association, a member of the Board of Regents of the American College of Trust and Estate Council, and a member of the Advisory Board of the University of Miami’s Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning. The ACTEC Foundation supports this biennial lecture series, which is held in her memory during the Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning.

2025 Lecture: Taking Care of Business: New Approaches to Business Succession Planning

The 2025 Lloyd Leva Plaine Distinguished Lecture features guest speaker Natalie Reitman-White and ACTEC Fellow Ellen K. Harrison. Their presentation explores the use of purpose trusts to preserve the founder’s mission, including potential challenges and benefits, with insights on why business owners are choosing to use purpose trusts.

Past Lectures Available for Download

• • Ellen K. Harrison and Natalie Reitman-White — Taking Care of Business: New Approaches to Business Succession Planning (PDF) Ellen K. Harrison advises clients on a broad range of tax issues, including estate planning and administration, tax controversies, and income, gift and estate tax planning for individuals, businesses and charitable organizations. Her tax controversy and litigation experience includes Internal Revenue Service (IRS) audits, IRS appeals, refund claims and US Tax Court litigation. She is a Fellow of ACTEC. Natalie Reitman-White, Founder and Principal at Purpose Owned. She is a sought-after educator and consultant, helping dozens of companies to explore and implement purpose-ownership and regenerative finance solutions.
  • Judge Maurice B. Foley was appointed to the United States Tax Court in 1995, and served as Chief Judge of United States Tax Court from 2018-2022.  His 2023 Lloyd Leva Plaine Distinguished Lecture, What’s Under The Robe? (PDF of materials) focused on McCord v. Commissioner and Succession of McCord v. Commissioner.  
  • Michael B. Greenwald is a thought leader and futurist on the future of money and fintech innovation as well as a former U.S. financial diplomat, professor, and author with over 15 years of experience in finance, corporate and family office strategy, public policy, intelligence, and diplomacy. His 2020 Lloyd Leva Plaine Lecture, The Future of Financial Warfare in an Era of Great Power Competition (PDF), focused on the new tools and tactics facing American financial systems and discussed how the U.S. must address these geoeconomic threats to economic and national security.​
  • Trevor Potter served as the former commissioner and chairman of the United States Federal Election Commission. His 2018 Lloyd Leva Plaine Lecture was titled Money in Politics: A Hydraulic or a Legal Issue? (PDF) For over a century federal law has attempted to regulate the sources and amounts of money in elections. The result proves to some that money is a hydraulic force: Efforts to channel it only result in broken dikes and washed-away dams. Others believe that the problem is in artful drafting, failed regulators, partisan greediness, the leveraging of the tax code to subvert the campaign finance laws, and a Supreme Court that has no understanding of how politics and the legislative system actually work. Which is it?
  • Jeffrey Toobin is a lawyer, author, blogger, and legal analyst for CNN. His 2018 Lloyd Leva Plaine Lecture was titled The Supreme Court in the Age of Obama (PDF), with a summary prepared by Stephen R. Akers. Mr. Toobin’s insights into the Supreme Court and Chief Justice John Roberts were not only interesting but also highly relevant to estate planning practices. After all, the U.S. Supreme Court has a substantial impact on the estate planning practice area.