Katarinna McBride is a Partner in the Advanced Planning and Family Office Group at Handler Thayer, LLP. Ms. McBride serves as general counsel to family business clients, charitable organizations, entrepreneurs and corporations and creates tax-savvy estate planning strategies for high-net-worth individuals, families and charitable organizations. She renders holistic and sophisticated advice and implements tax and asset protection strategies to safeguard family assets and businesses, including the creation of entities and trusts in foreign jurisdictions.
She also represents couples merging their financial lives, and seamlessly navigates clients through prenuptial agreements, postnuptial agreements, property-sharing agreements and other advanced asset segregation and protection strategies. Ms. McBride provides sophisticated advice to executors, trustees and corporate fiduciaries on interpretation of law and instruments, as well as implementation and corrective actions. Her prior legal experience includes serving as the Chair of a law firm estate planning and business transactional team and serving as tax and estate planning counsel at both large and mid-size law firms.
Ms. McBride serves on the advisory board to establish the Illinois Masters in Estate Planning (LL.M. Program). She has received the Service Award for her role as Editor for the Illinois State Bar Association Trusts & Estates publication, a role she has held for over six years. She also authors the Estate Planning column for of the Illinois Bar Journal. Ms. McBride is a featured financial & tax expert for Fox News, ABC News, NBC News and CBS News and is a frequent speaker for Illinois Continued Legal Education (IICLE), the Illinois Bar Association, Chicago Bar Association, National Law Institute, and multiple other Illinois and national venues. Ms. McBride is the Secretary of the Illinois State Bar Association Trusts & Estates Council and is a member of the Chicago Estate Planning Council and the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP). She also serves as the President of the Board for The Reading Room, a not-for-profit corporation tasked at creating a safe and cherished place for children to learn to read and love to read.
She has been recognized by various independent organizations on their top lists of top attorneys. Leading Lawyers Network named Ms. McBride one of the Top Attorneys in Illinois in two areas: 1) Trust, Will & Estate Planning Law and 2) Association & Non-Profit Law. She has also been recognized in the Super Lawyers list of Illinois Rising Stars in the area of Estate Planning & Probate, Closely Held Business and Tax and to the Lexis Nexis Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers. Ms. McBride has also been recognized as one of the Top 100 Women Consumer Lawyers in Illinois. Ms. McBride is also recognized as a Preeminent Lawyer by Martindale-Hubbell.
Ms. McBride is licensed to practice law in Illinois, North Carolina and Washington D.C. She also serves as an Adjunct Professor at The John Marshall Law School Graduate Tax Program, and is a visiting professor at the DePaul University Masters of Science in Taxation Program