Martin W. O’Toole

Partner, Harter Secrest & Emery LLP

Years in current role: 35

What do you enjoy most about your position?

Helping clients work through the knotty issues involved in lifetime planning (planning for health care decisions and asset management if disabled and, in some cases, planning for private and charitable gifts) and the disposition of assets following death.

What is one thing you hope to accomplish before the end of the year?

Reducing my backlog.

What are the biggest current challenges in trusts and estates law?

The biggest challenges in trusts and estates law (as opposed to challenges to trusts and estates practitioners) are, first, expanding the options for funding long-term care (particularly, when care is provided in the home); second, ensuring that assets pass according to the owner’s wishes when the asset might not pass under a Will or trust (such as a beneficiary designation done online); and third, having T&E law incorporate changes, some of which may be rapid, in assets (such as cryptocurrency), science (such as assisted reproduction or advances in slowing the aging process) and communication and recordkeeping (when many live their economic lives online without having a paper trail).

What do you think the biggest change in your practice area will be over the next 3-5 years?

Generative AI.

What do you enjoy most about practicing law in the Rochester area?

T&E practice in Rochester is still fairly collegial. The area is large enough to give rise to interesting estate planning situations.

This profile is part of The Daily Record's Power List for Trusts & Estates for 2023. Information used in this profile was sourced from the honoree. View the full list here.