Timothy Ferges is Chair of the firm’s Tax, Employee Benefits, Trusts, Estates & Private Clients practice group. He concentrates his practice in all areas of trust and estate law, including trust and estate litigation, estate planning, and trust and estate administration.
He advocates for clients in disputed estate and trust matters before the courts of New Jersey and New York. His matters include will contests and disputes over the validity of trusts or gifts. In those disputes, he brings and defends challenges to wills, trusts, and gifts on grounds of mental incapacity, undue influence, fraud, and other claims. Tim also brings and defends breach of fiduciary duty claims and handles contested accounting proceedings, will and trust construction matters, will and trust reformation or modification matters, disputes involving the validity or use of powers of attorney, guardianship proceedings, and other fiduciary disputes. He represents beneficiaries, individual fiduciaries, institutional trust companies, as well as charitable and non-profit organizations in those disputes.
Tim further counsels individuals and families in estate planning and estate administration matters. He works with clients to reach their estate planning goals while integrating asset protection and minimizing exposure to income and transfer taxes. He also advises fiduciaries with respect to tax compliance, settlement of fiduciary accountings, and all other facets of trust and estate administration.
Tim is a nationally recognized award-winning author and speaker. He has written for many notable publications covering varied trust and estate issues. He is a frequent lecturer to attorneys, accountants, and other professionals. Tim is a Fellow of both the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC) and the American Bar Foundation. He holds leadership roles in committees of ACTEC; the American Bar Association’s Real Property, Trust and Estate Law Section; and state bar associations.
In addition to being an attorney, Tim is a certified public accountant. He joined McCarter & English with extensive experience from his time at Deloitte & Touche, where he audited financial statements of publicly held corporations in the financial services industries. In his public accounting career, he also prepared estate planning analyses and worked in tax compliance, preparing federal and state estate tax returns, inheritance tax returns, gift tax returns, and fiduciary income tax returns.
Upon his graduation from law school, Tim served as law clerk to the Honorable Renee Jones Weeks and, upon her retirement, to the Honorable Walter Koprowski, Jr., both in the Probate Part of the Superior Court of New Jersey, Chancery Division. There his work was focused on the types of complex trust and estate litigation and guardianship matters in which he now concentrates his practice.
Tim also devotes his time to public service. He serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Springpoint Senior Living Foundation, a non-profit organization that funds housing and services for senior citizens. Moreover, through Partners for Women and Justice, he represents victims of domestic violence in final restraining order proceedings and other family law matters. Through the Essex County Probate Early Settlement Panel, Tim also serves as court-appointed mediator in trust and estate disputes.
