Joel W. Bunkley, III, JD, LL. M
Education:
LL.M. - Harvard Law School
J.D. - University of Mississippi School of Law
Associate Editor - Law Review
B.A. - University of Mississippi
Academic & Air Force ROTC scholarships
Professional Affiliations:
North Carolina State Bar
Tennessee State Bar
Mississippi State Bar
American Bar Association:
Experience:
With over forty years of experience in the legal profession and the financial services industry, Joel Bunkley is a practicing attorney licensed in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Mississippi. Mr. Bunkley has extensive experience in estate planning, estate administration, elder law, investment/non-investment related issues related to wealth, and the ability to handle a wide variety of routine/non-routine trusts and estate matters. In addition, Mr. Bunkley has experience with a broad range of business matters such as closely held business formation and operation, personal tax planning and controversies, and estate planning involving business entities.
His career includes service with the Wachovia Trust Company as a Senior Trust Consultant, as well as,Wachovia’s predecessor organization, First Union, as National Consulting Director for the Capital Management Group. In that capacity he developed and managed a national consulting program to provide high net worth individuals, families and corporations with sophisticated, proprietary financial and estate planning strategies, investment planning, insurance planning, private banking and capital market problem solving and specialized services. Additionally, the program facilitated non-investment issues related to wealth including philanthropy, succession planning, family mission statements, family member mentoring, and family governance. Mr. Bunkley has substantial experience in the analysis, creation and marketing of alternative investments (e.g., hedge funds & private placement variable life insurance), non-qualified executive benefits plans and corporate pension plans. He also has designed and taught innovative financial and estate planning programs for high net worth clients, lawyers and financial professionals.
Prior to his financial services careers and private practice Mr. Bunkley was a Professor of Law at the Wake Forest University School of Law and the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law. He taught trusts and estates, estate planning, estate & gift taxation, ERISA, individual and corporate taxation and decedents’ estates. Mr. Bunkley was the recipient of multiple Outstanding Professor Awards.
