Gail Black’s tax and private client services practice focuses on trusts (business and personal), taxation, estate planning and administration, and charities and not-for-profit organizations.

Gail advises her clients on the development and implementation of their estate plans including wills, family trusts, alter ego, spousal, and joint partner trusts, enduring powers of attorney, personal directives, tax-effective charitable giving (including private foundations), corporate reorganizations, and related asset transfers.

Gail also advises on cross-border planning and, as an active practising member of both the Alberta and BC Bars, advises on estate planning and administration for Albertans with real estate interests in British Columbia. She advises institutional and individual trustees and beneficiaries on trustee responsibility and trust interpretation, administration, and variation for taxation and other purposes. In addition, Gail advises on probate and estate administration.

Gail advises charities and other not-for-profit organisations on tax and other matters. She consults on litigation involving estate or trust issues. Gail also advises on the drafting, interpretation, and amendment of business trusts and their operational and liability issues.

Gail is a frequent speaker to a variety of organizations on taxation, estate planning and administration, trusts, planned giving, and charities and not-for-profit organizations. She is past Chair of STEP Calgary and recently was the co-instructor of the Wills and Estates course for the University of Calgary Law Faculty.

Gail is listed in The Best in Lawyers Canada 2012-2022 in Trusts and Estates. She has also been named to the recent editions of The Canadian Legal Lexpert Directory in Estate and Personal Tax Law. Gail is King’s Counsel, she was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 2016. She has volunteered for charitable organizations devoted to children, health, and the arts.

Gail practised for several years in British Columbia both as a partner at a major Vancouver firm and as a principal of her own firm. In Alberta, Gail was a partner at a major law firm in Calgary for several years before joining Miller Thomson in 2007.