| Wallace Becker
Wallace Becker was a Regents scholar, note editor of the Nebraska Law Review, and elected
by the faculty of the Nebraska Law College to the Order of the Coif (national law scholastic honorary
society). Academic rank at law school: first in first-year class; third in graduating class. He then
earned a master's degree from Harvard Law School.
He has been elected a fellow, American College of Trust and Estate Counsel; president,
Lincoln Estate Planning Council; and member, Lincoln Probate Discussion Group. He is admitted to
practice before the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Tax Court, U.S. Court of Federal Claims, and is licensed
to practice in Illinois, Missouri, and Nebraska.
He practiced law with the nationally renowned Chicago law firm, Chapman and Cutler, then
returned to his native Lincoln, where he now specializes in, and publishes and lectures on, the law of
estate planning, probate, gifts, trusts, charitable giving, life insurance planning, and related tax and
business planning.
Wally pioneered the use in Nebraska of the funded living trust as a useful estate planning
vehicle to achieve the twin goals of guardianship avoidance in event of incapacity and probate
avoidance in event of death. He designs Special Needs Trusts to preserve Medicaid-related needs-
based public benefits for disabled persons. He obtained from the IRS the first published private letter
ruling permitting vicarious qualification of a farming estate for 15-year deferred payment of federal
estate tax per IRC § 6166 based on the activities of the decedent's agent.
His extensive community involvement includes directorships, or planned giving committees, of
Alzheimers' Association of Greater Nebraska, American Heart Association (Lancaster County),
American Red Cross (local chapter), ARC-Lincoln, YMCA, First Presbyterian Church Foundation,
Nebraska State Historical Society Foundation, People's City Mission, Region V Foundation, and Saint
Elizabeth Foundation. He has served on the boards of deacons, trustees and elders of First Presbyterian
Church. He served as a lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard and delights in reading, jogging, and bicycle riding.
|