A Matter of Trust

I came to Naples in 1975 and went into practice on Fifth Avenue South. There were about 75 attorneys here then, but only three of them specialized in what I do, which is estate planning and trusts. Today there are about 500 attorneys in the Naples area and about 80 specialize in this field.

We had some significant money here in the '70s and '80s, but we have big numbers coming down now that would surprise you-very high-wealth individuals, some of whom you will never know or hear about or ever see. But they're here.

There are several reasons for it. One is simply that Naples is a very attractive place to live. Also, of the 50 states, we're No. 1 for tax advantages. There's no income tax, significant real estate tax savings, normal sales tax. It's also a place where you can invest and know that your investments are safe, which is why a lot of foreign investment is coming in.

My typical client has about $15 million. These are people who, for the most part, made their money themselves through entrepreneurial efforts, in every business under the sun-oil, gaskets, venture capital, healthcare, chemicals, real estate, cattle, banking. I use $15 million as the median but we go clear up to a billion five. I do very little work under $4 million or $5 million. I've done about $18-$20 billion worth of planning over the years.

The two major misconceptions people have about managing wealth are that it's extremely complex and that it's very expensive. If explained properly, the complexity can be eliminated. If you then understand the value you gain, it's not expensive at all. You have this trust, for instance, which will save your family $150,000 here and $500,000 in estate taxes and $200,000 if you do this. In some cases, we can totally eliminate all estate tax. It's my job to help people understand how they can benefit.

An extremely wealthy real estate developer from Central Florida recently came to me and threw a 38-page memo on my desk from one of the leading firms in the state. I read it and thought, this is one of the best legal memos I've seen. But he didn't understand one word of it, and they lost him as a client. So I took that memo and boiled it down to three pages. That's all he needed. I don't want a client going to a cocktail party and saying, "I have this trust, but I'll be darned if I know what it does." I want him to say, "I have this trust, and it does just what I want."

What I like best about this job are my clients, who are pretty much my friends as well. We go to events together; they get me on boards, I get them on boards; I donate money to their charities, they donate money to my charities. Clients come to me most often through referrals. Sometimes I'll meet them at fund raisers or other functions. I'm active in the Republican Party, and I meet a lot of people through my work. I was chairman of Friends of Connie Mack III for 18 years, which is his fund-raising arm. When I'm in Washington, D.C., or New York or Kansas City, it seems there's always someone at the table who wants to move to Florida.

What I like least about the job is the sluggishness and nonresponsiveness from the government agencies I'm pitted against. They have no sense of the real world or the needs of real people. In my 38 years of practicing, it's only gotten worse. Congress has enacted so many laws and given power to people who don't know how to use it or interpret it and, in fact, abuse it.

It is stunning what Congress does. The estate tax reform-we have a big exemption, $1.5 million one year, then $2 million, $3.5 million, then zero, then back to a million. It changes every year. I could not have dreamed that up. It's like they decided, let's make the estate tax so complex that no one understands it. I can say nothing good about government. Every stack on this desk involves a government problem. My job is living with complexity and rules and regulations and trying to weave myself through them successfully.

I'm from Oklahoma originally. I went to the University of Tulsa School of Law. I worked for a judge there for three years, one of the top judges in the Midwest, and I was totally immersed in estate administration, taxes, guardianships, trusts. That gave me a running start in this field. I ended up going to the University of Miami in 1974, which had a unique master's program in estate planning, the only one in the country at that time.

The dean at the school suggested I stay in Florida. He said if I took the skills I'd learned back to Tulsa, I probably wouldn't be very busy. I considered Sarasota and Naples. He told me, "Sarasota gets the president, but Naples gets the chairman of the board." So I came over and opened my business. In 1978 I joined the firm of Cummings & Lockwood. Then, in 2000, some young attorneys and I formed Cox & Nici, which was designed to be a more narrow, boutique firm. This allowed me to become involved in the Bank of Florida, of which I was founding chairman.

We have five attorneys in the firm and eight support staff. We have 2,075 clients, about 1,100 of which are mine. Most new clients go to Jim Nici. We're a paperless firm. Every document, phone call, all the active files are right here in the computer at our fingertips.

All of my clients want to do something positive with their wealth. Every one of them. I don't have any clients who are Ebenezer Scrooge. They're frugal, which is how they became wealthy, but they want their money to do some good.

I love what I do. I'm in the office seven days a week. This year Worth magazine picked me as one of the top 100 attorneys in the country. I think that's because of the volume of trust estate and tax work I do and the length of time I've done it-38 years. I'm sure there are many very fine attorneys out there but not many have done it this long. One of my clients who subscribes to the magazine sent my name in. That's how that happened.

While this field has become increasingly competitive, we've been busier every year. That's attributable to the growth of Naples. Some people say Naples was better 10 or 20 years ago. I don't think like that. I'm excited by the growth and see it continuing.