Melissa A. Rodriguez has joined Day Pitney LLP as a Trusts and Estates partner in its Private Client Department in Miami. The addition of Rodriguez reflects the firm's overall growth of their Private Client Department that has added close to 20 trusts and estates attorneys since the beginning of the year. With a roster of more than 90 trust and estate attorneys across the firm's footprint, Day Pitney boasts one of the largest private client and trust and estate practices among AmLaw 200 firms.

"As a firm, Day Pitney is seeing tremendous growth of high net worth clients in Florida," said Gregory A. Hayes, Managing Partner of Day Pitney. "Florida is an area of strategic growth for our firm and for our Private Client Department. We are thrilled to add Melissa to our team so that we can continue to offer insightful and innovative trust and estate planning capabilities to our clients."

Rodriguez is an experienced attorney in estate planning, trust and estate administration, and related litigation. She counsels clients on ultra-high-net-worth planning and has been trusted by numerous individuals and families to guide them through complex legal matters related to their wealth and assets. Rodriguez provides comprehensive and personalized counseling services to clients in advance of preparing wills, revocable and irrevocable trusts, marital agreements, and sophisticated estate planning documents, including dynasty trusts, intentionally defective grantor trusts (IDGTs), irrevocable life insurance trusts (ILITs), grantor retained annuity trusts (GRATs), spousal lifetime access trusts (SLATs), inter vivos qualified terminable interest trusts (QTIPs), and domestic and offshore asset protection trusts. She has extensive knowledge of estate and gift tax laws and regulations, and her planning experience extends to Internal Revenue Service filings such as gift, estate, and fiduciary income tax returns and obtaining private letter rulings. Additionally, Rodriguez works closely with clients to navigate the intricacies of probate and trust administration, and prenuptial and postnuptial agreements.

"I am excited to join this growing team of attorneys who understand client needs and provide some of the most comprehensive trusts and estates services in the country," added Rodriguez.

Rodriguez is a class member of the Florida Fellows Institute – American College of Trusts and Estate Counsel. She is also a member of The Florida Bar's Real Property, Probate and Trust Law Section, the Tax Section, and the Family Law Section. She is a member of the Miami Dade Bar Association's Probate and Guardianship Committee, the Cuban Bar Association, and the American Bar Association's Tax Section. She earned her B.A. from Florida International University, her J.D. from The University of Florida Levin College of Law, and her LL.M. in Taxation from The University of Florida Levin College of Law. Rodriguez is admitted to practice in Florida, and is fluent in Spanish.

Day Pitney offers private clients one of the country's most sophisticated private client practices. The attorneys have hundreds of years of combined experience advising individuals and their families on the full spectrum of matters related to trusts and estates, and family offices. Day Pitney is home to 15 Fellows of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC), a group of peer-elected trust and estate attorneys across the United States and abroad with more than ten years of experience in the active practice of probate and trust law or estate planning. Additionally, the Private Client Department at Day Pitney has been nationally recognized, being ranked in Chambers High Net Worth (HNW) Guide, named the 2022 U.S. News & World Report and Best Lawyers® "Law Firm of the Year" for Trusts & Estates Law, and selected for the "Best Law Firm – Estates and Trusts" honor at the Private Asset Management Awards in 2020. Award Methodologies for these awards are listed here for Chambers, here for U.S. News & World Report, and here for the PAM Awards.

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