Boston Estate Planning Council

2020 Annual Gala

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After much discussion, BEPC has made the difficult but necessary decision to cancel the 2020 Annual Gala slated for May 20, 2020 in order to support the critical COVID-19 mitigation efforts.

The Annual Gala is the forum we use to celebrate the Excellence Award recipient. The award is BEPC's highest honor and recognizes outstanding contributions of an individual to the estate planning profession. We look forward to honoring Scott E. Squillace, Esq. as the 2020 Excellence Award recipient at a future event.

The Annual Gala also marks the transition in BEPC's leadership. We also look forward to honoring Kelly Aylward, Esq., LLM and her ascension to President at a future event.

Our staff will begin the process of issuing refunds to all sponsors and registrants in the next week.

We wish to thank you for your ongoing support of BEPC and for your patience as we navigate this change.If you have any questions, please contact our office at bepc@bepc.org.

2020 Excellence Award Recipient

We are pleased to announce Scott E. Squillace, Esq. as the 2020 BEPC Excellence Award recipient. Scott is a business, tax and estate planning attorney with over 33 years of experience practicing law. He began his practice career as a corporate attorney at Skadden Arps and has significant business counseling experience as in-house corporate attorney, first as General Counsel for Levi Strauss & Co.’s European division based in Brussels and later as the first General Counsel for Grand Circle Travel, a privately held Boston-based travel company. He also served as European Counsel for Cabot Corporation in Boston.

As the founder of Squillace & Associates, P.C. – a boutique law firm in Boston – Scott now specializes in estate and business planning matters including tax and philanthropic planning for high net worth individuals and families. His practice includes estate planning needs for international clientele, corporate executives, small business owners, physicians, attorneys, and other professionals. He has a focus on helping same-sex couples and members of the LGBTQ community with their unique planning needs. He is the author of Whether to Wed: A Legal and Tax Guide for Gay and Lesbian Couples; is a Certified Master Trustee by the Independent Trustee Alliance (ITA) and holds the designation of Accredited Estate Planner (AEP) from the National Association of Estate Planners & Councils (NAEPC).

Scott was appointed by Governor Deval Patrick in 2014 to serve on a commission to study the needs of the LGBTQ elder community. Scott served as Founder and Co-Chair of the Equality Fund, an endowment for the LGBTQ Community established at The Boston Foundation. As a former member of the board of MassEquality, he worked tirelessly to help the Commonwealth preserve its status as the first state to legalize same-sex marriage in 2004. He was a member of the Board of Directors for the Boston Estate Planning Council and is a Certified Legacy Advisor of The Sunbridge Legacy Institute. He currently serves as a Trustee to Eastern Bank and on the Board of Directors of The Boston Foundation. He has been a columnist for Practical Estate Planning and lectures and writes frequently on estate and business planning as well as charitable giving strategies and planning for the LGBTQ community.

Scott holds a bachelor’s degree from Fordham University in New York. He studied at the Sorbonne University in Paris and earned his J.D. from the Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He is admitted to practice law in Massachusetts, New York, Washington D.C., and New Hampshire, and has been admitted to the Bar in Paris, France as an Avocat. Scott lives in Charlestown with his husband Chris Gayton and their silver labrador, Pearl.

2020 Emcee

Executive Arts Editor Jared Bowen is the Emmy award-winning host of the weekly television series, Open Studio with Jared Bowen, which takes viewers inside the creative process, offering a blend of profiles, performances, and contemporary exhibitions by artists in Greater Boston, New England, and across the country. He is a contributor to WGBH-TV’s nightly news magazine program, Greater Boston and appears regularly on 89.7 WGBH, where he covers the latest happenings in the region’s theater, art, music, dance and film on WGBH’s Morning Edition and Boston Public Radio. He also serves as a coach on the choir competition show Sing That Thing! and is the moderator of the Boston Speakers Series at Symphony Hall facilitating conversations with everyone from world leaders to Oscar-winning actors. He is a member of the Boston Theater Critics Association, the Boston Online Film Critics Association and is a Trustee of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Jared is also a contributor to the PBS NewsHour and Art New England magazine.

Jared has produced five news documentaries for WGBH and the first three seasons of the public media company’s Eye on Education initiative. He has won two New England Emmys and an Edward R. Murrow Award for his arts reporting and is a recipient of the Commonwealth Award, recognizing achievement in the arts, humanities and sciences.

Jared began his career at Dateline NBC in New York, and is a graduate of Emerson College where he also won several Associated Press Awards.