Comprehensive Estate Planning
We are are a full service estate planning firm. Not only we will create an individualized estate plan that meets your needs, but we will walk your through every step of the process from start to finish.
Wills
Whatever your situation, we can create a will that establishes your wishes for when you are gone. We have extensive experience drafting a simple will for a young person to drafting comprehensive and complex wills for well-established families.
Revocable Living Trusts
Given many clients desire to avoid Probate Court, we are able to create a Revocable Living Trust that is crafted specifically with your needs in mind. A Revocable Living Trust is a very flexible testamentary instrument that can be structured in numerous ways to ensure that it addresses your wishes when you are gone. Unlike many other estate planning firms, we will complete the entire funding process to ensure your trust has been properly funded (i.e. we will transfer title of your real and personal property assets into the name of the trust).
Irrevocable Living Trusts
While relatively uncommon, we have experience creating irrevocable trusts for our clients who require this form of trust for special estate and taxation considerations. With this type of trust, the trust cannot be changed or modified in any way trust without the unanimous consent of all beneficiaries.
Advance Health Care Directive
When creating an estate plan, we strongly recommend including an Advance Health Care Directive. An Advance Health Care Directive is a legal document which specifies what health care decisions or medical treatment you would like to be made if you are unable to act. This document can be structured in a variety of ways to give your acting representative specific and limited powers with regard to your health care decisions or broad powers to act on your behalf. When completing this document, we will walk you through every part of this document and encourage our clients to spend some time between appointments thinking about their wishes before this document is completed.
Power of Attorney
A general power of attorney gives another person broad powers to act on your behalf if you are unable to act (i.e. you become incapacitated). A power of attorney is generally included whenever we create a estate plan for a client to ensure that if something happens and the client is not able to act, a close friend or loved one can act on behalf of the client to handle financial matters.
Trust and Estate Administration
We also provide trust and estate administration services and can complete all of the legal requirements necessary to properly administer the trust.
Probate Services
We have extensive experience working with the Probate Court and helping guide our clients through the probate process. Regardless of the size of the estate or complexity of the issues in Probate Court, we are able to represent you in this process.
Charitable Planning
We also specialize in charitable planning for those clients who wish to distribute a portion or all of their estate to charitable entities when they pass. We can explain the process of charitable donations and also structure your estate plan in a way that ensure your charitable wishes are carried out.
Asset Protection Planning
One of the important aspects of estate planning is asset protection planning. When creating your estate plan, we will structure your estate plan to account for estate and taxation considerations.
Planning for Blended Families
We know that today, more than ever, families come in all shapes and sizes. We have years of experience working with blended families to ensure that the estate plan accounts for your family's needs.
Estate Tax Planning
When creating every estate plan, we always consider the tax consequences to ensure that we minimize the tax consequences for each client.
Business Succession Planning
If you have a family business, we can assist you in creating an estate plan that accounts for your business and what you hope to happen to the business after you are gone.
Wealth Transfer Planning
In addition to helping you create your estate planning, we also offer wealth transfer planning services. For many clients the timing of wealth transfer can be critical to minimizing the tax consequence and must be carefully thought out prior to the transfer.