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Stefan C. Nicholas, Attorney

COLUMN = LAW

Stefan C. Nicholas is a director and chair of Jackson & Campbell’s Estates and Trusts practice group and a member of the Business Law practice group. He has extensive experience in drafting wills, trusts, and all ancillary documents in connection with estate and gift-tax planning, as well as asset-protection planning, including both on- and off-shore asset-protection trusts and the use of corporate entities. Stefan also has extensive experience with sophisticated wealth transfer techniques such as grantor retained interest trusts, qualified personal residence trusts, and defective grantor trusts.

In addition, Stefan specializes in developing exit-planning strategies for business owners, and has counseled clients on estate planning, business succession planning, and asset-protection planning with an emphasis on managing the tax impact that liquidity events have on a client’s personal assets. He has guided clients on completing mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures, and has negotiated partnership, management, shareholder, employment, and confidentiality agreements on behalf of numerous clients.

Stefan earned his JD from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was a member of the Moore Society of International Law and the Black Law Students Association. Before that, Stefan earned his master’s in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia Wilson School of Foreign Affairs. He received a BA in International Relations from Georgetown University, which he followed with academic stints in Prague in the Czech Republic and Berlin, Germany, where he earned a Certificate of German Language and Culture from the Goethe Institute.

Stefan is admitted to practice law in the District of Columbia and the State of New York.

Stefan is a member of the American Bar Association and the Estates and Trusts Bar of the District of Columbia. He is a member of the Wealth Counsel and the Business Enterprise Institute, and is currently treasurer and a member of the board of directors for DC Vote and the chairman of the board of the Hilda & Charles Mason Charitable Foundation. Stefan also serves on the advisory board for Eagle Bank and the George Washington Cancer Institute, as well as the Alumni Board for Georgetown Day School.

Passion makes perfect.”

– Eugene Biro

That which grows fast withers as rapidly; that which grows slowly endures.”

– J.G. Holland, novelist

Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.”

– Basil King

History is a relentless master. It has no present, only the past rushing into the future. To try to hold fast is to be swept aside.”

– John F. Kennedy

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”

– T.S. Eliot

Letting go of expectations is a ticket to peace. It allows us to ride over every crisis—small or large—like a beach ball on water.”

– Martha Beck

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.”

– Mark Twain

In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.

– Robert Frost

If your success is not on your own terms, if it looks good to the world but does not feel good in your heart, it is not success at all.”

– Anna Quindlen

Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value.”

– Albert Einstein

Practice kindness all day to everybody and you will realize you’re already in heaven now.”

– Jack Kerouac

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”

– Anais Nin

The best hobbies are the ones that take us furthest from our primary occupation.”

– Dr. Evelyn Vogel, Dexter

Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value.”

– Albert Einstein

The goal of Life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with nature.”

– Joseph Cambell

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.”

– President Calvin Coolidge

This is the age when magical technologies make more and more radically fun ideas plausible, even easy. You’re only limited by your creativity.”

– Martha Beck

I always maintained that the greatest obstacle in life isn’t danger, it’s boredom. The battle against it is responsible for most of the events in the world — good or ill.”

– Dr. Evelyn Vogel, Dexter

If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.”

– Thomas Edison

The fixity of a habit is generally in direct proportion to its absurdity.”

– Marcel Proust

‎Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.”

– Booker T. Washington

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently.”

– Steve Jobs, Apple, Inc.

There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”

– Leonard Cohen

The quality of your life is directly related to the amount of uncertainty you can comfortably live with.”

– Tony Robbins

You must learn to be still in the midst of activity 
and to be vibrantly alive in repose.”

– Indira Ghandi

Are you willing to help other people succeed even when it’s not a requirement of your job to be of assistance?”

– Steven Schussler

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”

– Seneca

Entrepreneurs need to search purposefully for the sources of innovation that indicate opportunities for success.”

– Peter F. Drucker

A man without a smiling face
 should not open a shop.”

– Chinese Proverb

To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.”

– Robert Louis Stevenson

The music is all around us. All you have to do is listen.”

– August Rush

You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing.”

– Maya Angelou

A man who strikes first admits that his ideas have given out.”

– Chinese Proverb

The person who makes a success of living is the one who see his goal steadily and aims for it unswervingly. That is dedication.”

– Cecil B. DeMille

What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?”

– Magical

There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be…”

– John Lennon

The follow-your-gut mentality of the entrepreneur has the potential to take you anywhere you want to go or run you right out of business.”

– Bill Rancic, "The Apprentice"

Nobody talks about entrepreneurship as survival, but that’s exactly what nurtures creative thinking.”

– Anita Roddick, founder, The Body Shop

Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”

– Christopher Robin to Pooh

Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.”

– E.B. White

Don’t follow, lead. Don’t copy, create. Don’t start, finish. Don’t sit still, move. Don’t fit in, stand out. Don’t sit quietly, speak up. (Not all the time, sure, but more often.)”

– Seth Godin

Once you find something you love to do, be the best at doing it.”

– Debbi Fields, Mrs. Fields Cookies

No matter how difficult and painful it may be, nothing sounds as good to the soul as the truth.”

– Martha Beck, from "Leaving the Saints"

A person who learns to juggle six balls will be more skilled than the person who never tries to juggle more than three.”

– Marilyn vos Savant

The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

I was taught at a very young age that you can do whatever you want to, but you have to make it happen — not just talk about it.”

– Kathleen Jo Ryan

Everyone is a mirror image of yourself—your own thinking coming back at you.”

– Byron Katie

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. 
Now put foundations under them.”

– Henry David Thoreau

Speaking more than one language is no longer just an asset in today’s job market; it is a requirement.”

– Tom Adams, CEO, Rosetta Stone

We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.”

– Winston Churchill