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Barbara KristianssonBarbara Kristiansson
Barbara M. Kristiansson
Attorney
60 South Sixth Street
Suite 2700
Minneapolis, MN 55402
P 612.341.9710
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Barbara Kristiansson practices primarily in the areas of estate planning and estate administration. Her practical approach to estate planning blends her clients’ desires for passing on a legacy with the necessary tax planning, while helping to ensure that the estate plan lends itself to an efficient administration. Barbara strives to meet her clients’ needs in all stages of their lives, including pre-marital agreements, estate planning, tax planning, and estate settlement, as well as planning for the needs of young children and grandchildren.

Barbara specializes in planning to reduce or eliminate estate and generation skipping transfer taxes. Her experience includes using all forms of irrevocable trusts, GRATs and QPRTs, gifting, and family business transition and family cabin transition planning. She also has experience with large estate administrations involving 6166 and 2032A Elections, gift and estate tax audits and estate litigation matters.

Experience
  • Advised owners of multi-million dollar company in transitioning majority ownership to next generation through the use of tax-efficient gifting and sales techniques.
  • Represented client in IRS gift-tax audit, maintaining significant discounts for transfer of family business interests.
  • Represented individual trustee in the administration of a family member’s multi-million dollar estate with over 30 individual and charitable beneficiaries.
  • Represented daughter in a sibling-dispute over parent’s estate through mediation, successfully preventing court involvement.
  • Developed plan to modify terms of an irrevocable trust to protect share of beneficiary with addiction issues.
  • Represented surviving spouse in exercising rights over husband’s estate to obtain statutory rights over home.
  • Represented single parent with terminal illness in developing an estate plan for minor children.
Related Practices
Private Wealth Planning
Education
William Mitchell College of Law, 2004, J.D.
St. Olaf College, 1998, B.A., cum laude
Admissions
State of Minnesota
State of South Dakota
Language(s)
Firm News
Professional Associations
  • Minnesota State Bar Association
  • Ramsey County Bar Association
Seminars & Publications
  • Co-Presenter, “To Modify or not to Modify an Irrevocable Trust is not the Question, but How to do it Right Is…” – Ramsey County Bar Association, May 14, 2020
  • Author, “Estate Planning in the Midst of a Global Pandemic” – Messerli Kramer, March 13, 2020
  • Feature, “Planning Now for the Future of the Family Cabin” – Star Tribune, October 4, 2014
Awards & Recognition
  • Honoree, Minnesota Super Lawyers, 2024

After Hours

In the winter, you will find my family and me out on the ski slopes.  In the summer, we can be found walking around our St. Paul neighborhood with our puppy, Hugo.