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Robert Agresta is a Partner in the firm’s Private Client, Family Office, Trusts and Estates, Corporate, and Litigation practices. For more than fifteen years, Mr. Agresta has represented the owners of closely held enterprises and family offices and served as trustee of family trusts. His business-minded multi-disciplinary approach has lead to the development of trusted professional relationships spanning business operations, succession planning, family office governance and crisis management. He is often engaged to handle high stakes matters where swift action and a trusted, conscientious and business oriented voice is needed.

In advising clients, Mr. Agresta leads and coordinates governance, succession, tax, regulatory, and wealth preservation strategies using an iterative model. The approach begins with establishing a clear baseline, prioritizing the most consequential risks and opportunities then advancing through defined planning “sprints” to align solutions with evolving value systems, family dynamics, tax regimes, and regulatory conditions. This framework allows fiduciaries and principals to adapt structures over time without overcommitting to assumptions that may become outdated, while preserving the core principles expressed by the founder or reflected in a family compact, code of conduct, or letter of wishes. Robert is known for applying a business-minded approach focused on accumulative growth, economic and legal stability, and cost management.

Mr. Agresta also serves as trustee and private trust company director and delivers an integrated platform for family office and private trust company services. His work is directed toward organizing capital as a coordinated system rather than a collection of disconnected accounts, entities, and advisors. At scale, proper structure reduces cost, improves tax efficiency, and often allows access to institutional pricing, direct ownership, and negotiated terms. Risk is managed at the family level by aligning operating businesses, real estate, leverage, liquidity, and investment exposure within a single framework. The framework also provides for integrated family office-style functions including implementation of fintech and management of payables, domestic employees, real property and tangible assets.

As counsel, Mr. Agresta integrates fiduciary governance with oversight of legal, tax, investment, and liquidity considerations, providing continuity across trust governance and broader family operations. This approach professionalizes cash flow management, internal lending, collateral decisions, covenant tracking, and borrowing and liquidation decisions. Succession planning is treated as an ongoing operating function within the agile framework, with governance, reporting, and successor engagement established early and proactively. Across all engagements, his focus is on alignment—ensuring that structures, decisions, and advisors support durable outcomes over time.

Mr. Agresta is also admitted to practice in Wyoming and has substantial experience with Wyoming-based structures. His work includes forming and advising Wyoming private trust companies, serving as trustee for Wyoming-administered trusts, and structuring directed trust arrangements and long-term dynasty trusts under Wyoming law. He regularly works with Wyoming-based fiduciaries and service providers on trust administration, decanting, modification, and regulatory compliance.

His courtroom background in contested and high exposure matters informs a practical approach to advising clients. Mr. Agresta has resolved matters in state and federal courts, arbitration proceedings, and state and federal enforcement matters. Throughout his professional career, he has been helping clients protect their reputations, privacy and security. His litigation experience includes prosecution of antitrust and civil RICO matters, complex commercial litigation and arbitration, and federal proceedings involving significant financial exposure. He has litigated numerous matters to award or settlement and has briefed and argued appeals in state and federal appellate courts.

Mr. Agresta is licensed to practice in New York, Wyoming, New Jersey and Washington, D.C. and holds an MBA from the University of St. Gallen (HSG) in Switzerland. He is a dual citizen of Italy and the United States, is fluent in English, Italian, German, and Spanish, and is a licensed pilot and avid skier.

Bar Admissions

  • New York, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York
  • New Jersey, U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey
  • District of Columbia
  • Wyoming
  • Third Circuit Court of Appeals
  • United States Supreme Court

Education

  • Universität Skt. Gallen, (E.M.B.L.-HSG [MBA], 2016)
  • New York Law School (J.D., 2009)
  • Fordham University (B.Sc., 2005)

Representative Matters

  • Outside general counsel to single family office including management of all legal issues including corporate matters, litigation, reputation, privacy, security and risk management.
  • Represented commercial borrowers as well as private and publicly traded banks in negotiations, litigation, refinancings, and workout transactions involving complex real estate and financing structures, often in distressed or transitional settings.
  • Negotiated creditor-side forbearance agreements in bankruptcy-adjacent matters, secured by consents to judgment and pre-existing real property mortgages, requiring precision around collateral control, enforcement leverage, and downside protection.
  • Served as U.S. strategic counsel to a major European investor entering the U.S. market, advising on transaction structure, regulatory posture, and commercial risk in connection with market entry.
  • Prepared private placement materials and advised enterprises on U.S. securities compliance and capital-raising strategy, translating legal constraints into executable fundraising plans.
  • Acted as counsel in distressed M&A transactions, including asset acquisitions out of liquidation involving cross-border considerations, insolvency risk, and operational transition.
  • Resolved commercial disputes for principle owned enterprises with amounts in dispute in the hundreds of millions.
  • Resolved regulatory enforcement matters involving asserted exposure in the tens of millions.

Articles

Robert A. Agresta, International Tax Planning as a Business Driver, 5 Penn. St. J.L. & Int’l Aff. 538 (2017).
Available at: https://insight.dickinsonlaw.psu.edu/jlia/vol5/iss2/11