Alex Tyler Kirven

Alex is Special Counsel at GEM, heading the Firm's Estate Planning Department, where he counsels clients from a wide variety of backgrounds on estate, tax, and business planning. Alex uses these skills not only to assist GEM's estate, tax, and business planning clients, but also to provide invaluable assistance to GEM's dissolution of marriage and premarital agreement clients who have complex assets.

As an estate planner, Alex's objective is to provide clients with an estate plan that meets their goals for the transfer of wealth, the preservation of family values, and charitable giving. Alex works directly with clients to prepare wills, revocable trusts, powers of attorney, living wills, and beneficiary designations designed to meet each client's particular circumstances. In addition, Alex has experience in the use of irrevocable trusts, including spousal lifetime access trusts, annual exclusion or "Crummey" trusts, irrevocable life insurance trusts, grantor retained annuity trusts, qualified personal residence trusts, and charitable remainder trusts.

As a business planner, Alex advises clients with closely held businesses on how they can integrate the next generation of the family into the business, prepare a plan of succession that promotes stability and reduces conflict, and the use of trusts and other estate planning strategies for achieving these goals. To this end, Alex has formed business entities in Colorado and other states, negotiated and prepared partnership agreements and purchase and sale agreements, as well as facilitated the gifting and sale of business interests for estate planning purposes.

Prior to joining GEM Family Law, Alex practiced estate planning at a well-established firm in Denver, Colorado, where he focused on estate and tax planning for high and ultra-high-net-worth clients. During this time, Alex gained experience in all areas of estate, tax, and business planning and the skill set needed to design solutions for the unique issues faced by his clients.

Alex additionally served as a law clerk to the Honorable John R. Webb at the Colorado Court of Appeals, a prestigious position acknowledging Alex's academic talent.

Alex attended law school at the University of Colorado, where he served as a Resource Editor on the University of Colorado Law Review and graduated in the top 10 percent of his class, receiving membership in the distinguished Order of the Coif.