“You’re handed down all of this family history, and you get to decide the pieces that you pass down, and the pieces you want to make different. You can choose how you’re going to be remembered and what the next generation will take away.”
— Jennifer Marcus, Partner at Erwin & Marcus P.C.
As partner of Erwin and Marcus, P.C., Jennifer specializes in designing and implementing sophisticated, individualized estate plans for her clients that protect their assets, preserve their wealth, and align their legacies with what they want to create for future generations.
But for Jennifer, helping families plan the legacy of their wealth is not only her career… it’s her calling.
To know Jennifer is to know a life spent being fascinated by family history and the legacies they leave behind.
An inheritance in an attic
Jennifer grew up in a small Pennsylvania town in the same home her grandmother grew up in- an intricate house with “stairways to nowhere,” and an attic full of inherited ancestral artifacts that had been passed down to her family through several generations.
Jennifer was always drawn to these possessions because each of them opened up a world of stories of some person from her lineage.
This collection of enchanting heirlooms surrounding her throughout her childhood was the result of a large, close-knit family that cherished their Jewish heritage, their traditions, and most of all, their values.
A legacy is more than an inheritance
A favorite of Jennifer’s heirlooms were her candlesticks- more than the candlesticks, the long-standing tradition they held, and the values they carried forward.
Each Friday, Jennifer would stand in the exact same place in her home that her grandmother had stood, reciting the exact same prayer her grandmother had grown up saying, holding the exact same candlesticks her grandmother had held- a tradition that represents the values of love and of creating good in the world, and holding true to the practices that keep those values alive.
Jennifer’s love for family history comes also in part from listening to the stories her father would often tell about people in their lineage.
She came to realize that much of how the people in her ancestry lived their lives was evident in how she lived her own. Throughout her lineage, for example, her family has had a long history of close-knit siblings who looked after each other, and that intentional influence from her family caused Jennifer and her siblings to follow suit.
Jennifer knows first-hand the formative and life-giving experience of having a heritage that is preserved and passed down through generations- it isn’t only the inheritance that is passed down… it is the values and experiences the inheritance inspires.
The legacy her family left behind both influenced her childhood, and ultimately, shaped her destiny.
A career path of shaping legacies
Jennifer grew up in a hard-working household centered around creativity- her father was a writer, and her mother, a self-taught chef who developed a successful catering business that became a staple to her community.
But Jennifer’s sense of creativity was always expressed quite differently from the others in her family. She was more of a critical thinker and loved solving problems, and her inclination toward utilizing her intellect would ultimately come to serve her very well.
After graduating with honors from Stern College for Women of Yeshiva University, Jennifer was searching for the right next step for her career. The most intuitive path that appealed to her was the study of law- an area in which she could utilize her natural problem-solving skills and her inherent gift for putting complex pieces of a puzzle together.
Jennifer chose to attend the Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center of Touro College- a school that not only focused on theory but also allowed her the opportunity to gain optimal practical experience.
But Jennifer’s own puzzle of finding her life’s path was completed when she found the particular focus of trust and estate law- an area of law that not only utilized her critical-thinking abilities, but, at its core, is about getting to know a person, the history from which they come, their family dynamics, and how they can choose to carry their legacy forward through the way they intentionally plan their estate.
Jennifer found a practice in which she could utilize her most innate skills in an area that she cared deeply about- helping individuals and families create a legacy that positively impacts those they care about for generations to come.
The power of choosing your own legacy
Jennifer came to realize the impact of intentionally shaping a person’s legacy on an even deeper level when her husband’s grandfather told her a personal story of his own lineage- he fondly remembered his maternal grandparents and named his own children after them, but he could not, on the other hand, remember the names of his paternal grandparents, save for the fact that he had a negative experience with them.
This story had an impact on Jennifer- she began to realize that all a person is really left with is how the next generation perceives them and is shaped by them.
Jennifer gained an even deeper reverence for her work- she understands that planning a person’s estate can not only help them leave their wealth behind to those they care about, but can actually help to shape, or even reshape, the way in which they are remembered through the choices they make for the future.
Herein lies the deeper value behind Jennifer’s life work. Because while designing and implementing personalized estate plans for her clients is what she does, helping them choose the legacy they create for generations to come is who she is.
Professional Credentials
Jennifer designs and implements sophisticated trust and estate plans with an emphasis on multi-generation planning, asset protection, wealth preservation, corporate succession planning, and charitable giving. She is admitted to practice law in New York and New Jersey and is a member of the New York State Bar Association, NYSBA Trusts and Estate Law Section; American Bar Association, ABA Sections of Tax and Real Property, Trust and Estate Law.