“I know how to listen and I help my clients and their families navigate difficult issues by providing practical and creative solutions to complex problems.”
Nina is a partner at Obermayer and Chair of the Trusts and Estates practice group. Her practice is devoted exclusively to estate and trust law, with an emphasis on estate related litigation. She routinely appears in the Orphans’ Court for audit of executors’ and trustees’ accounts, petitions for guardianship, petitions for allowance of principal for guardianship matters, petitions for designation or removal of executors and trustees, and surcharge of fiduciaries.
Nina assists families with their estate planning by determining their goals and aspirations and designing documents to accomplish those goals – this may include Wills, Trusts (including generation-skipping trusts and special needs trusts), Advance Health Care Directives and Financial Powers of Attorney. She also assists with the administration/settlement of estates and trusts.
In her free time, Nina loves to travel, garden, read, and spend time with her family. She is also an active volunteer and is involved in many organizations and commitees.
During her career, Nina has successfully handled numerous matters involving nearly all aspects of estate and trust law. She uses this experience to effectively create estate plans for her clients, meeting with them to discern what is important to their families – educating children, protecting a spendthrift beneficiary, securing the inheritance of a disabled or special needs relative, and determining what, if any, tax or business planning considerations exist. She also assist clients when estate planning goes wrong and a dispute arises – from will contests to guardianships and forcing accounts or removing or surcharging misbehaving fiduciaries.
Nina realizes that she can make a difference to her clients and their families by helping them navigate a stressful and sometimes challenging process. Although sometimes she needs to deliver information a family or client does not want to hear, Nina understands that one of the most important aspects of her job is to provide all of the options to her clients and help them weigh the available choices and determine what result will be acceptable.
Prior to joining Obermayer in 1996, Nina practiced estate and trust law for nine years as an associate with a large national law firm in Philadelphia. Prior to that, she was an associate with another law firm in Warrington, PA, where she served as solicitor to the Springfield Township Zoning Hearing Board in Bucks County.
Nina was also a law clerk to the Hon. William Hart Rufe III in the Bucks County Court of Common Pleas, where she was responsible for all phases of research and preparation of draft memoranda and trial court opinions and orders.
Nina has been peer-nominated as a Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estates Counsel (ACTEC) and currently serves as ACTEC’s State Chair of Pennsylvania. She also serves on the Elder Law and Fiduciary Litigation Committees for ACTEC and chairs the Southeast Pennsylvania Nominating Committee.
Nina is a former Chair of the Philadelphia County Bar Association Probate Section Executive Committee, an elected position. She is a member of (and former Chair of) the Register of Wills and Orphans’ Court Rules Committee of the Philadelphia County Probate Section of the Bar, and a member of the Philadelphia County Estate Planning Council. In January 2017, Nina was awarded the Distinguished Estate Planner Award for 2016 from the Philadelphia Estate Planning Council.
Nina serves on the planning committee of the Estate Law Institute and frequently lectures on topics concerning estate and trust administration, and has served as course planner for the Pennsylvania Bar Institute (PBI) programs on the Fundamentals of Estate Administration and Fiduciary Income Taxation. In addition, she was also the editor for a chapter on Tax Planning for the PBI Press publication entitled “Estate Planning in Pennsylvania (Revised 2012 edition).”
Nina has been selected as one of “Pennsylvania Super Lawyers” as listed in both Philadelphia magazine and the Thomson Reuters, Legal magazine, “Pennsylvania Super Lawyers” 2006 thru 2024 editions and Top 50 Women Lawyers in Pennsylvania 2008-2009, and 2020. She also was included in the Best Lawyers in America© (2009-2025). Notably, she was recognized by Best Lawyers® as the 2021 “Lawyer of the Year” in Philadelphia.
In civic life, Nina is a passionate advocate for liberal arts education. As an Alumnus of Ursinus College, she has served on the Board of Trustees since 2008, currently as the Vice Chair, She is also a member of the Executive Committee, the Executive Compensation Committee and is Chair of the Audit Committee.
Awards Won*
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