Estate Planning

Successful estate planning involves significant financial and personal implications.  Failure to make the right decisions or at least consider the options may mean that the assets that you have worked so hard to acquire may be squandered by taxation or distributed to individuals not intended to be beneficiaries.

Every client’s circumstances are different and we do not believe in “cookie-cutter” estate plans.  The provisions of your estate-planning documents must reflect your particular goals: financial and personal independence and comfort during your life, protection and growth of assets and an orderly way to protect and disperse your assets after your death. 

We use an appropriate mix of planning. knowledge and individual consideration, that is, your particular goals and intentions.  Some of our clients’ concerns involve business and business succession planning involving entities such as corporations or LLC’s or the protection of assets for special needs individuals or others who are not capable of managing money for themselves.  Others have particular interests related to care and education of children and grandchildren or particular charities.  In other situations, the specific or  most important goal is to preserve assets for an individual whose spouse is facing the enormous expenses of long term care and who faces the prospect of becoming impoverished by the expense.

Clients should not accept standard documents; they should meet the individual's needs, not the lawyer's convenience.

Services include:

• Assisting in business succession planning, providing agreements for redemptions or cross-purchase of business interests and coordinate such agreements with clients' estate plans.
• Addressing the needs and vulnerabilities of clients or beneficiaries of clients with special needs including drafting to avoid ineligibility for public funds and protection of assets from creditors.
• Estate administration, including preparation of estate tax returns.