Daphne Goldman

Daphne focuses her practice in the areas of estate and trust administration and estate and tax planning. She represents and advises financial institutions, high-net-worth individuals, individual and corporate fiduciaries, and nonprofit and charitable entities.

Daphne has a wealth of experience in counseling and representing financial institutions, both with regard to fiduciary risk management and with regard to the administration of individual fiduciary accounts within the context of corporate oversight.

Daphne brings to her practice decades of representing individual and corporate trustees in all aspects of trust administration from the most complex contested litigation, to providing counsel regarding all aspects of trust administration, including fulfilling fiduciary obligations, responding to distribution requests, interpreting trust documents, and the preparing and filing of fiduciary accounts.

In the area of estate administration, Daphne represents fiduciaries and beneficiaries in intestacy proceedings and probating Wills; the collection and distribution of estate assets; the preparation and filing of inventories and accountings; the satisfaction of federal and state tax obligations; the presentation of contested and non-contested matters to the courts; and the settlement of complex estates, including contested and non-contested probate litigation involving will interpretation, will contest, and fiduciary accountings.

Daphne also handles lifetime and end-of-life planning and related document preparation, including Wills, Trusts, Powers of Attorney, and Advance Directives, as well as lifetime giving, and charitable planning matters. In addition, she provides counsel regarding estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer tax saving techniques.

Daphne joined Archer following an 18-year career in the financial services industry in which she provided legal counsel to the senior management of a very large regional bank, including the Chief Fiduciary Officer, Chief Investment Officer, and Director of Personal Trusts, with respect to the management of entity-wide legal risk pertaining to trust, estate and guardianship administration. Prior to her time as in-house counsel, Daphne spent 14 years in private practice, focusing on sophisticated estate planning, estate and trust administration, and complex fiduciary litigation.

Daphne is a frequent lecturer and author in the area of estates and trusts. She has lectured and published for the Pennsylvania Bar Association, Pennsylvania Bar Institute, New Jersey Institute of Continuing Legal Education, Philadelphia Bar Association, and The Legal Intelligencer, among others. Daphne is a former member of the Trust Advisory Committee of the Pennsylvania Bankers Association and previously served three terms on the Executive Committee of the Philadelphia Bar Association, Probate Section. She currently is a member of the Litigation Committee of the Philadelphia Bar Association, Probate Section.