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David R.Valz

PartnerSecretary to the Partnership
Cincinnati

O 513.352.6645

David R.Valz

Partner
Secretary to the Partnership
Cincinnati

O 513.352.6645

David is a partner and serves as the Secretary to the Partnership.

David is a member of the Corporate Transactions & Securities practice group, where he serves as the editor-in-chief of the practice group’s quarterly publication, Business Law Update, which is distributed to many of the firm’s clients.

David is also a member of the firm’s Personal & Succession Planning practice group, utilizing his roughly 30 years of experience in succession planning for privately held businesses and in advanced estate, tax and multi-generational wealth transfer planning for individuals and families.

David often functions as the go-to resource and trusted advisor for his clients, whether high-net-worth individuals and families or privately held businesses that do not have in-house legal counsel.

When things don’t go as planned, David also provides counsel in the context of shareholder disputes, “business divorces,” fiduciary disputes, trust and estate disputes, and the like.

A Cincinnati native, David is an active supporter of the community, having served multiple terms on the boards of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the Cincinnati Zoo Foundation.

Best Lawyers 2025

Selected by peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America® for 5 years or longer.

Focus Areas

David has extensive experience in the following areas:

  • Business succession planning involving complicated stockholder agreements, operating agreements, incentive agreements, and the like.
  • Representation of privately held businesses in connection with mergers, acquisitions, financings, joint ventures, capital raises, recapitalizations and restructurings.
  • Representation of affluent families with complex personal and financial circumstances, including the design and implementation of comprehensive estate and succession plans.
  • Advanced estate planning involving the drafting and implementation of irrevocable trusts, generation-skipping trusts, intentionally defective irrevocable trusts, asset protection trusts, revocable trusts, gift trusts, insurance trusts, qualified personal residence trusts, charitable remainder trusts, grantor retained annuity trusts, and the like.
  • Gift and estate tax reporting and return preparation, including the defense and resolution of IRS gift and estate tax audits involving valuations of closely held entities and assets.
  • Trust decantings, probate court reformations of trusts, and the drafting of private settlement agreements for trusts.

David is the longtime editor-in-chief of Business Law Update, the Corporate Transactions & Securities practice group’s quarterly newsletter. Recent editions of the newsletter can be accessed below:

  • Selected for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America® 2017 to 2025 for Trusts and Estates
  • Listed in Legal 500 in Mergers and Acquisitions, 2014

Professional Associations

  • Cincinnati Bar Association
  • Cincinnati Estate Planning Council
  • Kentucky Bar Association
  • Northern Kentucky Bar Association
  • Ohio State Bar Association

Community Activities

  • Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra: Chair, Planned Giving Committee, 2022-2024; Chair, Audit and Ethics Committee, 2019-2024; Governance Committee, 2019-2024; Board of Directors, 2018-2024
  • Cincinnati Zoo Foundation, Inc.: Board of Trustees, 2015-2024
  • University Club of Cincinnati: Broadway Improvement Committee, 2011-2012; Board of Governors and Finance Committee, 2004-2010; President, 2009; Vice President, House Committee Chair and President-elect, 2008; Vice President and Finance Committee Chair, 2007; Treasurer, 2006; Secretary, 2004-2005
  • Vanderbilt University CoRPs Program (alumni interviewer of prospective students for the School of Engineering), 2007-present
  • Vanderbilt Alumni Association, Cincinnati Chapter, 1996-present

Education

  • Salmon P. Chase College of Law, J.D.,

    1994, cum laude, NKU Law Review

  • Vanderbilt University School of Engineering,

    1991, Engineering and Economics (double major), cum laude

Bar Admissions

  • Ohio
  • Kentucky

Court Admissions

  • U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio