Wills & Estate Planning

Attorneys practicing in this group handle estate planning and other issues of family-asset planning for individual clients. Our attorneys regularly advise clients on estate and gift taxes, business succession, estate probate and trust administration, charitable giving, marital planning, retirement planning, and guardianships and conservatorships. Our goal is to assist clients in defining and implementing their specific personal goals while obtaining the significant tax savings that may be available to them through proper planning.

Our attorneys regularly prepare the following estate planning documents:

• Wills which contain provisions that address estate tax issues while implementing the client's dispositive intent.
• Children’s trusts which apply income and principal for the education and support of a child with principal distributions required at stated ages, such as one-third at ages 25, 30, and 35.
• Credit shelter trusts that take advantage of the amount exempt from estate tax on the death of the first spouse.
• Marital trusts, including qualified terminable interest property trusts (QTIP trusts) designed to provide a lifetime benefit for the surviving spouse with the balance of the trust passing at the spouse's death to designated beneficiaries. This type of trust is typically used to provide asset management for the surviving spouse or to insure that the property in the trust will pass to designated beneficiaries, such as children.
• Generation-skipping trusts designed to take advantage of the maximum amount that may be passed to second-generation beneficiaries, such as grandchildren, without incurring the generation-skipping transfer tax.
• Revocable trusts set up during the client's lifetime to hold the client's assets and pass such assets outside of probate to named beneficiaries in a tax-advantaged manner.
• Irrevocable insurance trusts designed to be the owner and beneficiary of life insurance so that the insurance proceeds are not subject to estate tax upon the insured's death.
• Grantor-retained annuity trusts (GRATs) used in passing assets to children or other beneficiaries while retaining an income interest for a term of years.
• Personal residence trusts used to pass the client's principal residence or second home to children or other beneficiaries while retaining the right to use such residence for a period of years.
• Family limited partnerships and limited liability companies (LLCs) used to transfer assets to family members at a discount from fair market value.

See related service areas:

• Charitable Giving
• Estate & Gift Taxes
• Probate & Trusts

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