Estate Planning, Probate & Trust Attorney

Family first and foremost, estate planning is for the ones you love.

Estate planning is not just for high-net-worth individuals. And it’s not just for the elderly, especially if young people have children. While estate planning attorneys emphasize the importance of revocable or irrevocable trusts, which in fact are of utmost importance, there are other aspects of estate planning to consider: powers of attorney; advanced health care directives; wills; naming pre-ordained guardians for minor children; and more.

The first step in estate planning is taking stock of all assets one owns, that is, preparing a list of all real property (land, houses, buildings, etc.) and all financial property (bank accounts, saving accounts, retirement accounts, investment accounts, etc.). Then the planner lists the value of each asset. I make this process easy for my clients by providing a fill-in-the-blanks format that guides my clients through this information gathering process. Also a part of this preparation is for my client to list his or her heirs (spouses, children, and perhaps grandchildren) and to list others my client may wish to benefit from his or her estate.

There is an end-of-life legal process that may be costly for those who have not prepared a trust. It’s called probate. Probate court procedures are dictated by state statutes. The probate process is open to the public giving anyone and everyone an opportunity to see the assets a person had when he or she died, and worse yet, the probate documents filed with the court list the heirs and anyone else who may be a beneficiary of the person who died. This is why I encourage all of my clients to prepare a living trust.