Joint Council Meeting | Estate Planning with IRAs
Presentation: Feeling SECURE or INSECURE? Planning for beneficiaries of IRA
Despite the fact that six years have passed since the passage of the SECURE Act, and the additions of regulations and SECURE 2.0, many quandaries and questions remain surrounding this area of estate planning. This presentation will cover what we know, what we think we know, and what we don’t know, all in the context of planning for our clients’ IRAs and qualified retirement plan interests. Buckle up, hold on, and we’ll do this together!
Speaker: Robert Kirkland
Bob Kirkland is a Member of the law firm of Kirkland Hochstetler PLLC, which has offices in Naples, Florida, Kansas City, Missouri, and Canton, Ohio. He is licensed to practice law in Florida, Missouri and Kansas. He works with a variety of individual clients, handling the preparation of estate planning instruments, and counseling clients in the areas of estate and gift tax minimization, probate avoidance, gifting techniques, IRA distribution planning, asset protection, charitable planning and business succession planning. He also advises fiduciaries on estate, conservatorship and trust administration matters. Mr. Kirkland has successfully completed the Effective Probate Mediation Training course sponsored by ACTEC and frequently serves as a mediator of trust and estate disputes.
Mr. Kirkland is a Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (“ACTEC”), is a past Missouri State Chair of ACTEC, and a past member of the ACTEC Board of Regents and ACTEC Executive Committee. He is also a member of the ACTEC Employee Benefits Committee (past Chair), Fiduciary Administration Committee, and Long Range Planning Committee, as well as a past Chair of the ACTEC Sponsorship Advisory Committee and Bylaws and Manuals Committee. He currently serves on the Board of Directors and Executive Committee of the ACTEC Foundation. He is listed in the last thirty editions of The Best Lawyers in America and the most recent additions of Super Lawyers. Kirkland is Chambers ranked in High Net Worth.
Mr. Kirkland is also the founding Chancellor of the Heart of America ACTEC Fellows Institute. He is a recent inductee into the Kansas City Estate Planning Society Hall of Fame. He also was recently elected to serve on the Executive Council of the Florida Bar Real Property Probate and Trust Law Section. In July 2025, Kirkland was presented with the Missouri Lawyers Media “Icon” award.
Mr. Kirkland is a frequent author and lecturer in the estate planning and charitable giving areas. He has lectured on a variety of topics at seminars sponsored by ACTEC, The Heckerling Institute, ALI-CLE, Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners, The Missouri Bar, The Kansas Bar Association, The Iowa Bar, IICLE, The Ohio Bar, The Idaho Bar, The Florida Bar, The Oklahoma Bar Association, the Hawaii Tax Institute, the Southern Federal Tax Institute, the Notre Dame Estate Planning Institute, the Duke University Estate Planning Conference, the Rady Children’s Hospital Foundation Symposium, the Community Foundation of Louisville, the ACTEC Florida Fellows Institute, the UCLA Institute on Estate Planning, The MO-KAN Trust Conference, the American Heart Association, and the Estate Planning Councils of Baltimore, Charlotte, Greenville, Little Rock, Louisville, Naples, New York City, Philadelphia, Springfield (Missouri), St. Louis, Boca Raton, Broward County and West Palm Beach.
Mr. Kirkland holds a B.S. in accounting from William Jewell College (1980), a J.D. from the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law (1983), and an L.L.M. in estate planning from the University of Miami, Florida School of Law (1985). During his tenure at the UMKC School of Law, he served as Managing Editor of the UMKC Law Review.
