Estate Planning

• To get started, you’ll have some homework. We ask clients to upload detailed family and financial information before our first meeting.
• Once we understand your family, your assets, and your goals, we will discuss the probate and tax considerations relevant to you, explain the most common choices made by others in your situation, listen to your concerns, and share our thoughts about the best options for you. Most of our clients finalize their choices in our first meeting.
• If retained, we research the public record for your assets, draft documents for review and discussion, and clients return to sign final drafts in our office before a notary and two witnesses. Basic packages include wills with contingent trusts for minor and disabled beneficiaries, business and medical powers of attorney, medical directives, declarations of guardian, HIPAA authorizations, and exit memos regarding beneficiary designations, titling accounts, and personal effects memorandums. Tax-planned wills and inter vivos revocable trusts (so-called “living trusts”) are the most common upgrades.
• With a list of your assets, we can provide specific agent and beneficiary designation suggestions, asset-by-asset and account-by-account. Clients are invited to bring blank beneficiary designation update forms (for each bank, brokerage account, life insurance policy, retirement account, annuity contract, and employment benefit) to the signing ceremony, which we can review together to help you conform all your beneficiary designations to our suggestions.
• Following the signing ceremony, clients leave with executed, original estate planning documents to safeguard, a complete copy for easy access at home, and detailed advice regarding each significant asset. Once archived, we share with each client an Adobe PDF file of all executed documents, our exit memos, and the notary record and signing ceremony.

Estate plan fixed fees begin at $3,000 ($3,500 for married couples) and include time for questions and revisions. Tax-planned and living trusts are more. Fees are determined after the initial interview.

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