Estate Planning Practice Areas
The goal of estate planning is to protect your assets during your lifetime and to ensure when you die, your assets pass to the family members, friends and charitable organizations of your choice. This includes providing arrangements for continuing care for your children and disabled family members.
During your lifetime, your assets should be protected. We can advise you of the benefits and disadvantages of various methods of asset protection including forms of asset ownership, spendthrift trusts, family limited liability companies or partnerships, prenuptial agreements, Medicaid planning and qualified retirement planning.
When you die, your assets and property should be distributed according to your wishes, without unnecessary taxes or court involvement. Whether you have a small or large estate, we can provide a plan that is custom tailored to fit your individual needs. In order to properly implement your wishes, we provide experienced and professional service in the drafting of wills, trusts, powers of attorney, gifting and pre-death and post-death tax planning.
The absence of an estate plan can result in unnecessary taxes. Transferring assets to trusts and using beneficiary designations can be effective methods to achieve estate and income tax savings. Estate planning techniques include the use of marital trusts, irrevocable life insurance trusts, charitable remainder trusts, Crummey trusts, gifting programs and family limited liability companies.
Whether you have a large or small estate, we provide:
- Initial office consultation to review legal, tax and practical considerations relating to disposition of assets during your lifetime and at death through the use of gifts, wills, trusts and family limited liability companies and partnerships
- Discussion about planning alternatives, avoiding probate, providing for minors and disabled family members, using financial and medical durable powers of attorney, living wills and planning for Medicaid.
- Assistance with the selection and formulation of an estate plan, including transition of business holdings and buy/sell agreements
- Review and provide recommendations concerning effective methods of protecting your assets during your lifetime and how to implement an asset protection plan
- Consultation to review the draft documentation we have prepared and submitted to you with a written explanation
Assistance in executing the estate planning documents you select and in signing the related transfer and beneficiary documents that are required to implement your plan