M. Elena Hoffstein

Elena Hoffstein is engaged in personal tax and estate planning, family business succession planning, wills and trusts, corporate reorganizations, marriage contracts and charities and not for profit law. Elena also represents clients in both contentious and non-contentious estate litigation matters including will challenges, mental capacity matters, applications for advice and direction of the court and passing of fiduciary accounts.

Elena has been ranked by LEXPERT as one of the most frequently recommended Toronto private client and charity law practitioners and as one of the top 500 lawyers in Canada. Martindale-Hubbell has given her a rating of AV. In 2006, she received the Ontario Bar Association Award of Excellence in Trusts and Estates in recognition of her leadership and contribution to estates and trusts law.

Elena articled with the firm in 1978-79 and returned in 1980 after being called to the Bar and became a partner in 1986. She is director of the Toronto office's Wealth Management and Charities practice group.

Selected Experience

• Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre Foundation formed

News

• Canadian Legal LEXPERT Directory 2008 – Fasken Martineau garners 69 nominations
• The Best Lawyers in Canada 2008: Fasken Martineau Garners Seventy-Nine Nominations

Publications

• Some Tax Considerations in Drafting Discretionary Trusts
• Estate Planning and the Taxation of Trusts - The Annotated Discretionary Trust

Presentations

• Gifts by Wills: The Essential Do's and Don'ts
• The Elderly Donor

Membership/Affiliations

• American Bar Association
• American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC)
• Canadian Association of Family Enterprise (CAFÉ)
• Canadian Association of Gift Planners (CAGP)
• Canadian Bar Association and member of Executive Committee Charity and Not For profit
• Section and member of following sub-committees:
• Probate Fees Committee
• The Canadian Bar Association (Ontario)
• Charities Committee
• The Canadian Bar Association (Ontario)
• Trusts and Estates Section Subcommittee making submissions with respect to proposals to amend the Family Law Act (1994)
• Canadian Centre for Philanthropy
• Canadian Tax Foundation
• Estate Planning Council of Toronto (past)
• Family Firm Institute (FFI)
• International Academy of Estate & Trust Law
• Law Society of Upper Canada (and former head of section of Estate Planning and Administration, Bar Admission Course) and following sub-committees:
  • Sub-Committee of The Law Society of Upper Canada commenting on Bills 108, 109 and 110 (substitute decision-making and consent to treatment)
  • Professional Standards Sub-Committee
• Ontario Bar Association (past chair of Charity and Not for Profit section, currently on executive committee)
• Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP) (and currently on Toronto executive committee)
• Advisory Committee to Attorney General (Ontario) on Hague Convention on the International Recognition of Trusts

Community Involvement

• Member, BMO Retirement Advisory Council
• Member, Planned Giving Committee SickKids Foundation
• Member, Planned Giving Committee Toronto General and Western Hospital Foundation
• Past Director, The Clark Institute of Psychiatry Foundation
• Past Director, Canadian Mothercraft Society
  

Honours and Awards

• Recognized by LEXPERT Directory as one of the most frequently recommended Toronto private client practitioners in estate planning and charity law
• Martindale-Hubbell ranking: AV
• Ontario Bar Association Award of Excellence in Trusts and Estates in recognition of leadership and contribution to estates and trusts law (2006)
• Appointed to BMO Retirement Advisory Council