Our services extend beyond the preparation of legal documents. The members of the Estate Planning, Probate and Trust Administration Practice Group will assist you to develop your goals, evaluate your options, and select the estate planning tools that best fit your family's needs.
Estate planning is simply long-term family financial planning. It is the creation of specific strategies designed primarily to protect your family's financial future by minimizing or eliminating gift and estate taxation.
Our attorneys provide special expertise whether you are interested in creating a basic or sophisticated estate plan to protect family members, investments and business holdings.
After your estate plan is in place, our attorneys will assist you with the administration and management of your plan and updating your plan as your family and business needs change.
Basic Estate Planning
Community property, cohabitation, and pre-nuptial agreements, revocable living trusts, wills for United States citizens and resident aliens, irrevocable life insurance trusts, health care directives (living wills), and arrangements for organ donation.
Disability Planning
Revocable living trusts, durable powers of attorney for financial matters and health care, and guardianships.
Planning for Closely-Held Businesses
Succession planning involving business partners and family members, buy-sell agreements, and corporate split-dollar insurance agreements.
Family Foundations and Charitable Planned Giving
Private foundations, gifts of appreciated property, charitable lead trusts, charitable remainder annuity trusts and unitrusts, and charitable gift annuities.
Sophisticated Estate Planning
Lifetime gifting plans, family limited liability companies, qualified personal residence trusts, private annuities, grantor retained annuity trusts, self-canceling installment notes, generation-skipping trusts, and disclaimers.
Planning for Family Members with Special Needs
Minors' trusts, educational trusts, trusts for aged parents, and guardianships.
Probate and Estate Administration
Assistance with all phases of probate and administration, including the preparation of inventories and the sale and distribution of assets.
Tax Services
Preparation and filing of state and federal tax returns and representation in the event of audit by the IRS. Attorneys
