Robert W. Cockren

Robert W. Cockren is a Partner at Dentons, based in Short Hills, New Jersey and New York, focusing on Wills and Trusts. He practises in trusts and estates planning, the administration of trusts and estates and related taxation areas, as well as fiduciary accounting issues, will contests, family wealth disputes, contested accountings, guardianship matters and business succession planning.

Bob is the head of Dentons’ Trusts, Estates and Wealth Preservation practice in New Jersey and the former national head of the practice. As such, he has had management responsibility for nearly 25 lawyers and professionals serving clients throughout the United States.

He has advised owners of closely held businesses on issues such as buy/sell and employment agreements and life insurance planning, as well as disputes among owners of privately held businesses and medical practices. Through former work on behalf of a zoning board, he is experienced in land use law issues.

His practice includes counselling clients on the preparation of both simple and complex wills, insurance trusts, revocable trusts, generation-skipping trusts, qualified personal residence trusts, grantor retained annuity trusts, spousal access trusts, charitable trusts and various other types of trusts; pre- and post-marital agreements; shareholders’ agreements; and other documents used in sophisticated estate planning. He is also involved with the planning for and administration of charitable entities, including private foundations and the creation and utilisation of entities to hold client assets, such as limited liability companies.

Bob is a former member of the board of trustees of the Northwestern New Jersey Estate Planning Council. In addition to his trusts and estates practice, he is the former Town Attorney for the Town of Westfield, NJ, where he served as general counsel to the municipality and as head of its Law Department. A former law secretary to the Hon. A. Jerome Moore of the New Jersey Superior Court, he is admitted to practise in New York, New Jersey and Florida and is a member of the bar associations in those states.

He formerly hosted and was executive producer of Legally Speaking, a cable television programme that aired on the Cable Television Network of New Jersey. He has spoken on estate planning and related subjects at seminars sponsored by groups such as Merrill Lynch, the New Jersey State Bar Association, the New Jersey Bar Foundation, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co., Bank of America and the New Jersey Bankers Association, and has served as an expert witness in matters involving trusts and estate planning and administration issues.

Bob is the former chairman of the Board of Trustees of Kean University and a former member of the Board of the Scholarship Fund for Inner City Children, the Kean University Foundation and the Liberty Hall Museum. He served as an arbitrator for the National Association of Securities Dealers for more than 20 years.

He is recognised in Best Lawyers in America for Litigation – Trusts and Estates (2011–present) and Trusts and Estates (2008–present). His practice areas include individual taxation, and trusts, estates and wealth preservation. He holds a JD from Fordham University School of Law and a BA, magna cum laude, from Siena College.