Max Elliott, Managing Attorney and Founder of The Law Offices of Max Elliott, Ltd., is a licensed, Illinois estate planning, business planning, and estate administration attorney.  Her firm, with offices in Chicago and New York City, focuses on unique families and women small business owners, and services include estate planning for taxable and non-taxable estates, estate administration, and advising small businesses in start-up, growth, restructuring, domestic and international cybersecurity protection, and succession planning phases.

On behalf of her firm, Ms. Elliott is also General Counsel for the Bernie Mac Foundation, Inc., a private non-profit foundation, and spearheaded the organization’s most recent restructuring.  

She is ranked as one of the Top 100 Black Lawyers by the National Black Lawyers organization, the first African American member of the Executive Committee for the Chicago Bar Association’s Trust Law Committee, a 2017-18 Super Lawyers® Rising Star, a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, a volunteer faculty member for the Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education (IICLE), a faculty member for Manhattan, New York-based Lawline that provides online legal CLE for attorneys nationwide, a member of the U.S. Trust, Bank of America Center of Influence on estate planning, ranked “Superb” and a recipient of the Top Contributor in Estate Planning Award from Avvo, a lawyer peer ranking site, and a member of the Association of African American Financial Advisors.

In addition to her legal experience, Ms. Elliott has more than 20 years of non-legal experience, including several years’ employment in the American Bar Association’s former International Liaison Office and several years with Fortune 500 companies, including a former “Big 8 Accounting Firm” and a leading international management consulting firm.  Throughout her career, she has also assisted entrepreneurs in creating viable business planning solutions, such as creating and implementing marketing plans, strategic operation plans, securing capital, and business succession. She has worked with start-ups in the personal care, healthcare, small manufacturing, and nonprofit sectors. This experience provides a solid foundation for the business advisory services she provides to small business owners.

Presentations

  • Virtual Estate Planning: Digital Currency & Posthumous Children
  • Preventing Disasters: Estate Planning for Older, Unmarried, LGBTQ Couples in Illinois
  • Future Planning: Cryptocurrency, Cryonics & Posthumously Conceived Children
  • Planning Family-Owned Businesses: Avoiding Earthquakes and Landslides while Building Legacies
  • Diversity Matters: In/Tolerance Tales from the Solo/Small Firm Trenches
  • How to Incorporate Estate Planning into Your Offering:  The Silver Tsunami, Planning Trends, and Estate Planning Myths
  • Avoiding the ARDC Checkmate: The Ethical Difficulties of Lawyers Functioning in Dual Roles
  • Professional Wills and Advanced Directives for the Solo/Small Firm Practitioner,
  • Working in a Solo Small Firm Practice Environment
  • Estate Planning and Wealth Preservation Considerations
  • The Lottery & Estate Planning for Elders: You Don’t Need A Ticket to Win
  • What if I Am Neither: Estate Planning for the Transgender and Queer Community
  • Estate Planning for LGBTQ Couples: Legal Changes in Plain English, Part Deux
  • Estate Planning for LGBTQ Couples: Legal Changes in Plain English
  • Celebrating Black History Month: The Essence of the African American Community and the Law
  • Tax and Estate Planning for Same-Sex Couples
  • The Silver Tsunami: Are You Prepared? (Estate Planning for Baby Boomers & Their Families)
  • Fundamental Estate Planning Documents for Today’s Families
  • Succession Planning for Attorneys
  • Basic Estate Planning Is an Oxymoron
  • Fundamental Estate Planning Documents for Same-Sex Couples
  • Changes in the Estate Planning Landscape in Light of the Illinois Civil Union
  • Basic and Intermediate Estate Planning Fundamentals
  • Marriage Equality, Hot Topics in Family Law,
  • LGBT Employment and Relationship Rights
  • Estate Planning and the Illinois Civil Union
  • Co-Editor-In-Chief, the DePaul Journal of Women, Gender and the Law, the first legal journal in Illinois dedicated to women and gender legal issues

Legal Affiliations

  • American Bar Association
  • Black Women’s Bar Association of Greater Chicago
  • Chicago Bar Association
  • Illinois State Bar Association

Volunteer Support

  • Chicago Women’s Health Center
  • Howard Brown Center
  • Marillac-St. Vincent Family Services
  • Legal Advisory Board of Raise the Floor Alliance,

Education

DePaul University College of Law, International Law

Northwestern University, Political Science, International Relations