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Fiduciary Duty Litigation

Fiduciary Duty Litigation Attorneys Serving Clients Nationwide

A fiduciary relationship is built on a single premise: that someone entrusted with your money, your business, or your family’s future will act in your interest rather than their own. When that trust is broken, the loss is rarely just financial. Kaufman & Hilbert PC represents beneficiaries, business owners, shareholders, and institutions in disputes over breached fiduciary duties, and defends fiduciaries facing claims that their judgment or conduct fell short. Based in Alpharetta, Georgia, and serving clients nationwide and internationally, the firm brings senior litigators to matters that turn on documents, motives, and the fine details of what a fiduciary knew and when. These cases are won on the record, and we build that record from the first day.

How Kaufman & Hilbert Can Help

Fiduciary claims arise in trusts, partnerships, closely held companies, estates, and professional relationships. Our attorneys handle them from both sides, including:

  • Claims against trustees, executors, and administrators for mismanagement, self-dealing, or disregarded instructions
  • Partner, shareholder, member, officer, and director breach of duty claims
  • Breach of loyalty, usurpation of corporate opportunity, and self-interested transaction disputes
  • Accountings, surcharge actions, and removal of a fiduciary
  • Defense of trustees, executors, directors, and officers against breach of duty allegations

Our Fiduciary Duty Litigation Services

Trustee and Estate Fiduciary Claims

Professional and individual trustees owe duties of loyalty, prudence, impartiality, and obedience to the terms of the trust. We litigate claims that a trustee invested imprudently, ignored the settlor’s directions, favored one class of beneficiary over another, charged improper fees, or failed to account. We pursue surcharge, removal, and recovery of losses, and we defend fiduciaries whose good-faith judgment is being second-guessed with the benefit of hindsight.

Partnership, Shareholder, and Director Disputes

Partners, LLC members, majority shareholders, officers, and directors owe duties to the entity and, in many circumstances, to each other. We handle freeze-outs, diverted opportunities, undisclosed related-party transactions, misuse of company assets, and breaches tied to buy-sell and operating agreements. Because the firm also advises companies on governance and transactions, we read these disputes the way the underlying documents were meant to be read.

Defense of Fiduciaries

A breach of fiduciary duty allegation puts a professional reputation on the line alongside the money. We defend trustees, executors, banks, advisors, officers, and directors, focusing early on the scope of the duty actually owed, the business judgment and good-faith defenses available, exculpatory and indemnification provisions, and the limitations and laches issues that dispose of stale claims.

CASE CALLOUT MODULE

Representative Result: Namik v. Wachovia Bank of Georgia (Georgia Supreme Court, 2005)

As lead counsel, Robert J. Kaufman secured a Georgia Supreme Court victory for the Namik family, reinstating the trial court’s finding that Wachovia breached its fiduciary and contractual duties as trustee by disregarding the settlor’s investment instructions. The decision reinforced that professional trustees must exercise informed prudence and honor a client’s specific directions when managing trust assets.

Namik v. Wachovia Bank of Georgia, 279 Ga. 250, 612 S.E.2d 270 (2005)

Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Every matter is decided on its own facts.

Who We Serve

We represent trust and estate beneficiaries, settlors and their families, business owners and investors on the wrong side of a controlling partner, and companies whose officers or advisors put themselves first. We also defend the fiduciaries in those relationships: corporate trustees, executors and administrators, directors, officers, and professional advisors. Most of these clients arrive after months of unanswered questions or a single document that finally made the picture clear. What they need is a candid read on what the duty required, what the evidence will show, and what recovery is realistically worth.
Meet Our Team
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Charles Ralston
COO/CTO
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Robert J. Kaufman
Partner
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Alex B. Kaufman
Partner
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Jon Spetalnick
Partner
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Christian Zimm
Attorney
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Dylan Phillips
Attorney
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Why Kaufman & Hilbert

Senior-Led Representation. Experienced attorneys handle your fiduciary matter personally, from the first document review through trial or resolution.

Full-Service Strategy. Fiduciary litigation informed by the firm’s corporate, estate planning, and real estate practices, because these claims almost always sit on top of an underlying deal or plan.

Nationwide & International Reach. We represent beneficiaries, businesses, and fiduciaries across the country and beyond.

Responsive, Practical Counsel. Honest advice about the strength of a claim, the cost of proving it, and whether the relationship can be salvaged.

  • How it works

Our Approach

01

Listen & Assess

We review the trust, operating agreement, or governing documents alongside the account records and correspondence to identify the specific duty at issue and where it was breached.

02

Strategy

We define the claims, the recoverable damages, and the leverage points, including accountings, removal, and injunctive relief, and set a realistic view of timeline and cost.

03

Execution

We pursue the documents and testimony that fiduciary cases turn on, retain valuation and accounting experts where needed, and litigate motions and trial with senior attorneys on the file throughout.

04

Resolution

We close the matter through judgment, negotiated settlement, or a restructured fiduciary relationship, and pursue collection or enforcement where required.

  • FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions

A fiduciary is someone legally obligated to act in another party's interest, such as a trustee, executor, partner, corporate officer, or director. A breach occurs when that person puts their own interests first, acts carelessly with entrusted assets, ignores the terms of the governing document, or conceals material information. The specific duties owed depend on the relationship and the documents that created it.
Trustees, executors and administrators, corporate directors and officers, business partners and LLC members, majority shareholders, agents under a power of attorney, and certain professional advisors, among others. Whether a duty existed is often the first contested issue in the case.

Limitations periods vary by state, by the type of claim, and by when the breach was or reasonably should have been discovered. Trust and estate matters can involve separate deadlines tied to accountings and distributions. Because concealment is common in these cases, timing arguments cut both ways, and we assess them early.
Depending on the facts and the jurisdiction, remedies may include recovery of losses, disgorgement of the fiduciary's profits or fees, removal of the fiduciary, a constructive trust over misappropriated assets, and in some cases attorney's fees or punitive damages. We evaluate the full range of remedies before deciding how to frame the claim.
  • CONTACT

Schedule a Consultation

If someone you trusted with your assets, your business, or your family’s future acted in their own interest instead, the record is where the case is won. Call Kaufman & Hilbert PC at +1-770-299-0792 or email of****@************rt.com (General Inquiries), in****@************rt.com (New Client Consultation) to schedule a consultation with our real estate litigation attorneys.

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