Michael P. Sampson
Partner
Overview
Michael's legal practice focuses on high-end estate and tax planning, estate and trust administration, charitable planning, and business succession planning. Michael helps his clients focus on what it is they really want to accomplish with their wealth. After assisting his clients in identifying their specific wealth planning goals, Michael works with them and their other professional advisors to develop and implement wealth transfer strategies that are consistent not only with their goals, but also with their cash flow needs and tolerance for risk.
It is this practical focus on the real-life impact of wealth transfer planning that distinguishes Michael's approach from that of the typical estate planning attorney. Beyond preparing legal documents, he also serves as his clients' wealth coach, personal CFO, professional pest, and skeptic-for-hire. Michael also provides his clients with access to his deep network of contacts, which often leads to solutions for many of life's little problems, even if they're completely unrelated to what you would normally think of as "estate planning."
Michael is a Fellow of The American College of Trust and Estate Counsel and has also been recognized as a Notable Practitioner in Minnesota for Private Wealth Law in the 2018-2019 editions of the Chambers High Net Worth (HNW) guide. He is a frequent speaker at continuing legal education seminars and has served as an adjunct professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law in St. Paul. Michael serves as the head of Maslon's Estate Planning Group and is also very active in the Minnesota State Bar Association, currently serving as Treasurer of the Probate and Trust Law Section Council and as a past chair of the Section's Legislation Committee.
Michael currently serves as chairman of the Board of Directors of Guild Incorporated, a St. Paul-based non-profit that works with individuals with severe mental illness. Before joining the board of Guild Incorporated, Michael was a founding member and past chair of the Board of Directors of the Twin Cities German Immersion School (TCGIS).
Michael's hobbies include playing acoustic guitar, reading, photography, and listening to music. He attended Carleton College, where he majored in German. He attended law school at the University of Iowa. He is married and has two daughters.
Honors
Fellow, The American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC), 2017 (ACTEC Fellows have more than ten years in practice and are elected by their peers based on outstanding reputation, exceptional skill, and substantial contributions to the field by lecturing, writing, teaching, and participating in bar activities.)
Notable Practitioner in Minnesota for Private Wealth Law, Chambers High Net Worth (HNW), 2018-2019