Estate Planning Services

Estate planning is setting up a plan for what you want done with your estate after your death. Your estate includes all of your assets – homes, properties, cash, investments, stocks and bonds, and bank accounts. It is anything of value that you own at the time of your death.

We will help you ensure that your intentions are carried out after you are gone. We make sure that your plans are enforceable, so that the people you want to receive assets will receive them.

Learn about your options

The core question is – who do you want to receive your money after your death?

Our attorneys get to know you and your goals, and then present you with the options to make that happen. Whether you want to support a specific organization, make sure your money goes towards your grandchildren’s education, set up a special needs trust for a child, we will help you get there.

Get where you want to go

After we have established your goals, we will form a plan with you based on your specific situation.

We believe that everyone should have an estate plan, and we do our best to keep costs reasonable so that these services are accessible to all.

Avoid Probate

If you do not have an estate plan in the event of your death, state statutes dictate where your assets go. It is more efficient and cost effective to create an estate plan yourself than to leave it to the state to process. If you want a say in where your assets go, you need an estate plan.

Every adult should have an estate plan if they have any assets at all. If you own a home, you should have an estate plan to make sure the house doesn’t need to go through an extensive and potentially expensive probate period.

Peace of Mind

Find comfort and security in knowing that you have given thought to the future and that your estate plan is done. Feel secure knowing you have explored your options and are making the best decisions to accomplish your goals, whether that’s making a large gift to your alma mater, paying for your grandchildren’s college education, or making sure a child with disabilities is provided for.

Worried about it being disputed? We will help you make it enforceable, regardless of a potential challenge.

Provide for Family

We are used to handling complex and nuanced family situations. We have helped many families determine how to provide for each of their children, especially when one of those children has special needs. We create a plan to make sure that funds last, and that their child will have a certain quality of life standard. This may include setting up a special needs trust, depending on the specifics of the situation.

After you have completed estate planning with us, we handle the legal work to make sure that your intentions are carried out.

You get the sense of security in knowing that your estate plan is finalized, it will be implemented based on your wishes, and you do not have to worry about it anymore!

What happens next

Once your estate planning is completed, you can be as involved or uninvolved as you would like.

We often find that clients develop long-term relationships with our attorneys, often working with the same person over decades when they need to update the estate plan or as other legal questions arise throughout life.

We do our best to make sure no one is able to contest your plans. Doing this work ahead of time can help prevent fighting and stress among children and beneficiaries after your death.

During your lifetime:

• If you have a trust, the things you own need to be titled in the name of the trust.

• Beneficiary designations for retirement accounts or life insurance need to be consistent with what you want as part of your estate plan.

After death:

• Administration to ensure what you have left goes to who it is supposed to go to. Whether it has to go through the courts in probating a will or directly from a trust, either way there is legal work that helps make sure the intentions are carried out. [Dealing with decedent’s estate]

We start with your goals and intentions, then we determine the best tools to ensure that the people who you want to receive what is left will receive it.

Such tools may include:

• Trusts, including special needs trusts as needed

• Wills

• Planned Gifts

• Joint Ownership of Property

• Family Limited Partnerships

We can also help you with related legal work, such as:

• Prepare documents including wills, trusts, durable powers of attorney, deeds to home or other real property

• Prepare an advance health care directive (generally part of estate planning)

• If you are leaving assets to an individual who may not be able to manage that inheritance, we can help you set up a structure to make sure it’s managed properly so you can take comfort knowing that beneficiaries quality of life will be optimized.