ATTORNEY profiles

John P.C. Duncan
Principal

John Duncan founded the Chicago law firm Duncan Associates Attorneys and Counselors, P.C. in 2000 to concentrate on the representation of private, boutique, and traditional trust companies, family offices, and other wealth management organizations. His expertise includes designing and implementing trans-generational governance and succession structures and family office risk-management programs.

Over the past 20 years, he has advised more than 130 ultra-wealthy families, including collaborating with clients’ tax and trust counsel to help form more than half of the regulated Private Trust Companies chartered in the United States during that period.  In 2009, he founded the PTC Association, LLC, an association of private trust companies.

John drafted a model trust company act that has been adopted in nearly half of the states.  The firm served as principal counsel for the drafting of New Hampshire’s new trust and trust company statutes in 2007 and 2008, establishing it as a very attractive state for trusts and private trust companies.  The amendments included immunity for trustees from certain asset concentration decisions, authority to create dynasty purpose trusts, and the most detailed provisions in the nation addressing the relationships among trustees and other trust participants, such as co-trustees, trust advisors and trust protectors. 

Most recently, the firm has been principal draftsmen of similar trust company legislation enacted in Nevada that became effective October 1, 2009.

John is a graduate of Yale University (B.A. cum laude 1971) and The University of Chicago Law School (J.D. 1974).  Prior to forming Duncan Associates, John headed the banking and investment practice of the international law firm Jones Day.  He is a member of the Collaboration for Flourishing Families, the Banking Law Committee of the American Bar Association (Co‑chairman, ABA Financial Privacy Task Force, 1998–2001; Chairman, Securities Activities of Banks Subcommittee, 1995–98) and past chairman of the Financial Institutions Committee of the Chicago Bar Association (1985–86).  He is admitted to practice in the state of Illinois and with the United States Supreme Court.

He is a regular contributor to professional publications and frequent speaker at legal and wealth management conferences, including the FOX Fall Forum Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning, Chicago Estate Planning Council, the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners, Institutional Investor’s Annual Integrated Wealth Management Forum, and the Notre Dame Estate Planning and Tax Institute.

A list of Mr. Duncan's recent presentations and articles on wealth management may be found on the Publications & Presentations page.

Michael R. Conway, Jr.
Counsel

Mike Conway joined Duncan Associates in May 2005 as Counsel and became a partner of the firm January 1, 2007. Immediately prior to joining the firm, Mike served as general counsel for a family office.  From 1999 to 2004, Mike was a partner in the Private Client Department at McDermott, Will & Emery, where he advised and assisted private clients and fiduciaries in all aspects of domestic and international estate planning, tax and administration.  Mike also has an extensive background advising fiduciaries and families in contested matters relating to estate and trust administration.

Mike now concentrates his practice on the representation of fiduciaries, family offices and individuals of extraordinary wealth.  Mike is a co-author of the New Hampshire Trust Modernization and Competition Act of 2006 and has lectured and written on a number of areas relating to private trust companies, tax and estate planning, and estate and trust administration.

Mike is a graduate of Benedictine University (B.A. cum laude 1990) and the University of Illinois (J.D. magna cum laude 1993).  He is admitted to practice in the State of Illinois.

Baird S. Allis
Associate

Baird S. Allis joined Duncan Associates in June 2009.  Baird focuses on corporate, securities and investment activities of trust companies and family offices and the structuring of sophisticated private wealth management entities.  Immediately prior to joining the firm, Baird was a corporate associate at Sidley Austin LLP specializing in public and private company mergers and acquisitions and securities offerings and advising numerous private companies and publicly-traded corporations on federal securities laws and corporate governance.  From 2006-2007, Baird clerked for the Honorable William M. Acker, Jr., United States District Judge Northern District of Alabama, Birmingham, AL. 

Baird is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame Law School (J.D. 2006) and the University of Chicago (B.A. cum laude 2002).  He is admitted to practice law in the State of Illinois.

Heather A. Wallack
Associate

Heather A. Wallack joined Duncan Associates in October 2006.  Heather focuses on the formation and start-up of private and other wealth management trust companies.  Prior to joining the firm, Heather was a law clerk at Horwood Marcus & Berk Chartered, where she assisted with various taxation, estate planning, corporate and litigation matters.

Heather is a graduate of DePaul University College of Law (J.D. 2005) and Indiana University (B.A. 1994), where she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.  While attending DePaul University College of Law, she obtained a Certificate in Intellectual Property:  Arts and Museum Law, served as the Lead Articles Solicitor of the DePaul-LCA Journal of Art & Entertainment Law, and was a CALI Award Recipient for Senior Research Seminar:  Cultural Property.  She is admitted to practice law in the State of Illinois.