Doug Hoak is an attorney and member of Illumine Legal LLC, where he leads the firm’s Estate and Tax Planning Department. Doug’s practice concentrates on estate and tax planning, estate administration, and business succession planning for high-net-worth families and individuals. Doug is known for his creativity – his ability to think clearly about complex problems and develop clever, client-centric legal solutions. He also prides himself on his ability to clearly communicate complex strategies in a way that the average person can understand. His practice experience includes a range of area-specific solutions and activities, including creation of revocable trusts and wills, irrevocable grantor and non-grantor trusts, sales, gifts, and loans to individuals and trusts, grantor retained annuity trusts and personal residence trusts, as well as trust modifications through court action, decanting, and non-judicial settlements, and the preparation of tax returns such as the Form 709, U.S. Gift Tax Return, and the Form 706, U.S. Estate Tax Return (for taxable and non-taxable estates).
Doug received his law degree from the University of Denver, Sturm College of Law, where he graduated in the top 17% of his class, and then went on to receive a Master of Law (“LL.M.”) in estate and tax planning from the University of Miami School of Law in Miami, Florida, where he achieved top grades in generation-skipping transfer tax planning and marital deduction planning. He was selected for a prestigious internship with a professor-led law firm.
Prior to attending law school, Doug was a wildland firefighter with the Midnight Sun Hotshots in Fairbanks, Alaska and a Yellowstone Helitack in Yellowstone National Park. Doug fought fires in three of the largest fire seasons on record and was a squad boss and sawyer.
Doug lives in Denver, where he enjoys spending time with his wife and three children.
