Our firm is built on the care, understanding, and professionalism founded, in part, on our estate planning and probate practice. We recognize the emotional impact the loss of a loved one has, and we help make things easier by creating a plan for a client’s family and loved ones. We work with our clients to understand what they want to accomplish, help them formulate a plan, and then utilize the tools that fit their plan. We can help in a variety of ways, including:
Wills and Trusts
We have extensive experience with simple wills, complex wills, and different kinds of trusts, and we work with you to determine which approach meets your needs. Creation of a “valid will” or “valid trust” is only part of the process. Through our experience we can ascertain how wills and trusts can be utilized to provide protections to meet the unique needs of our client’s family.
Living Wills and Durable Powers of Attorney for Health Care
A critical part of every person’s estate planning is to address life support decisions and authorizing others to make medical decisions on your behalf. This is accomplished through a Living Will and Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care. We work with a client to carefully craft a document that addresses each client’s concerns and desires.
Powers of Attorney
Estate planning also extends to managing your affairs if you are incapacitated for any reason. Powers of attorney allow you to decide, in advance, who can make financial decisions for you in the event you are incapacitated. We help you understand the circumstances in which powers of attorney are effective and how you can direct others decisions made on your behalf.
Businesses
We provide advice in the areas of business succession and tax considerations to assist in setting up your business for success across generations. Our approach always coordinates your business plan with your personal estate plan.
Tax Planning
Estate taxes and gift taxes are complicated areas of law. We have the experience necessary to guide you through the process and help you minimize potential estate and gift taxes so that things go to the people you want to give them to.
Probate – Settling Estates and Administering Trusts
We have the expertise to assist you with estate and trust administration. We assist clients who need advice navigating fiduciary responsibilities as a personal representative or trustee, as well as clients who want to confirm that the duties owed to them as an heir or beneficiary are fulfilled. Our goal is to help ensure that the heirs receive their benefits in accordance with the decedent’s wishes. Through our extensive experience in probate, we can guide clients in making strategic decisions that can ultimately result in substantial income tax savings, and allocation of assets in the most efficient manner to provide for the needs of our clients’ families.