Drinker Biddle Attorney Lisa Presser Invited to Visit the Technion

PRINCETON, NJ (December 3, 2004) -- Lisa S. Presser, a partner in the Personal and Fiduciary Law department of Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP in Princeton, was invited to tour Israel’s Technion earlier this month, as part of the university’s international fundraising effort. The Technion is in the midst of a campaign to raise $750 million by October 2006, with at least half of those funds coming from planned gifts. To date, $550 million has been raised.

Presser saw this invitation to visit The Technion as an opportunity to educate her clients who may be considering planning charitable gifts. Many of Presser’s clients have created private foundations, charitable remainder trusts and charitable lead trusts as part of their overall estate and tax planning.

“Working in estate planning, my clients sometimes ask for guidance on charitable giving,” explained Presser, “and I’m uncomfortable suggesting organizations with which I’m not familiar. This trip to learn about The Technion gave me the opportunity to learn about the institute first-hand. It soon became clear that the subjects being taught and sophisticated research being done there will have far-reaching implications, benefiting people and companies around the world.”

The Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Israel’s oldest university, is ranked among the top ten technological universities in the world, and is one of only five of its kind with a medical school. Most recently, Technion professors Avram Hershko and Aaron Ciechanover received the Nobel Prize in 2004 for Chemistry.

Presser has extensive experience in the areas of estate planning and estate and trust administration. She has helped clients in drafting wills and trusts using generation-skipping transfer tax planning, marital deduction planning and other sophisticated techniques that ensure the succession of family wealth. Presser also advises individual and corporate fiduciaries with respect to probate matters, trust accountings, and the ongoing administration of trusts and estates.