Jack K. Beckett

I represent individuals, families, institutional trustees, and non-profit entities in a wide array of estate planning and fiduciary litigation matters.

I have experience preparing trusts, wills, pre-marital agreements, and other estate planning documents for a range of clients, from high net worth individuals to those with modest estates. This includes extensive experience planning for individuals with special needs, including the preparation of first and third party special needs trusts, and I regularly advise clients on how to preserve eligibility for public benefits such as Medical Assistance and Supplemental Security Income. I also assist clients with business succession planning and have experience preparing and implementing operating agreements and buy-sell agreements.

I also have an active fiduciary litigation practice including will contests, constructive trust and other equity actions, declaratory judgment actions, trust modifications, guardianships, removal actions, and fee contest cases. I have extensive motions practice experience, have tried cases before the Circuit and Orphans’ courts, and argued before the Court of Special Appeals.

I received my law degree from the Washington and Lee University School of Law, cum laude, in May 2011. At Washington and Lee, I was a Burks Scholar Writing Fellow and a staff writer for the Washington and Lee Law Review. Following graduation from law school, I clerked for the Honorable Pamela J. White on the Circuit Court of Baltimore City. I earned my Bachelor of Arts degree from Wittenberg University, magna cum laude, in political science in May 2008. Before joining the Franke, Sessions & Beckett LLC, I was an associate at a prominent elder law and special needs planning firm in the Baltimore area. I was admitted to practice before the Maryland Court of Appeals in December 2011 and the United States District Court for the District of Maryland in 2017.

My writing has been featured in several state and national publications, including the NAELA News and the Maryland Bar Journal. I also have significant public policy experience, having worked with the Maryland General Assembly on legislation affecting Maryland’s law of estates and trusts.

Wittenberg University, 2008
Bachelor of Arts, Political Science
Magna Cum Laude

Washington and Lee University School of Law, 2011
Juris Doctor
Cum Laude