Estate Planning

Our firm prides itself on the personal service we provide to our clients in planning and protecting their family legacies. Our approach to estate planning encompasses the creation, conservation, use, growth and distribution of your assets during your life and at your death. We design customized estate plans to protect you and your family while you’re living and transfer wealth to your loved ones when you die while minimizing tax liabilities and accomplishing any goals or wishes you may have. We assist individuals, newly established families with young minor children, retirement age couples, and same sex couples create revocable living trusts, wills, advance health care directives, powers of attorney, and other planning documents to establish a tailored and comprehensive estate plan.

Inter-vivos planning involves:

Post-mortem planning involves:

Medical Decisions

Appointing someone to make medical decisions for you if you are unable to make such decisions for yourself in an Advance Health Care Directive.

Financial Decisions

Appointing someone to make manage your financial affairs, including managing your money, real estate, businesses, and other assets, if you become unable manage these assets due to disability or cognitive impairment.

Asset Protection

Asset protection planning is proactive legal action that protects your assets from future creditors, divorce, lawsuits or judgments.

Retirement and Education

Properly utilizing retirement accounts and college 529 plans for you and your children's financial future.

Business Succession Planning

Preparing buy-sell agreements for businesses and assets you own with others to ensure a smooth transition at a business owner’s death, disability, retirement or withdrawal.

Special Needs Planning

Planning for loved one’s with special needs so as not to disqualify them from receiving government benefits like SSI and disability.

Insurance Planning

Planning for disability, long-term care, life insurance, and other insurance needs.

Minimizing or Avoiding Taxes

Proper estate planning minimizes or avoids estate, income, and property taxes.

Probate Avoidance

One of many goals of proper estate planning to to avoid probate. Often when there is no estate plan in place or a defective estate plan, the decedent's assets require administration through probate, which has higher costs, greater delays, and lacks privacy.

Appointing a Guardian

Appointing Guardians for your minor children are imperative as he or she will largely be responsible for the upbringing of your children and will act as a surrogate parent in their care and custody.

Appointing Successor Trustees

Nominating Successor Trustees to manage your financial affairs if you're unable to do so due to incapacity or cognitive impairment and to manage your estate upon your death and distribute your assets to your beneficiaries.

Beneficiaries

Planning for what your beneficiaries are to receive from your estate and addressing issues of transferring such wealth, such as the individual needs of your beneficiaries and your family as a whole and minimizing taxes.

Family Planning

Planning for restrictions on your beneficiaries inheritances including establishing trusts for minor and adult children.

Special Needs Planning

Planning for loved one’s with special needs so as not to disqualify them from receiving government benefits like SSI and disability.

Asset Protection

Creating liability and creditor protection for both your assets and the inheritance that your beneficiaries will receive.

Business Succession Planning

Preparing buy-sell agreements for businesses and assets you own with others to ensure a smooth transition at a business owner’s death, disability, retirement or withdrawal.