Estate Planning is the orderly transfer of wealth from one generation to the next. It identifies family, tax and inheritance issues to be resolved in the manner that you determine to be most appropriate for you and your heirs. The planning process includes: (1) determining what your assets are; (2) determining who you wish to leave them to; and (3) preparing documents to pass the assets to your intended beneficiaries in the most practical manner. The practical considerations include how the Federal estate and inheritance taxes may apply to your estates, the provisions that you may wish to make for your children or any other beneficiaries who may have special needs, and who you may wish to name as Executors, Trustees and Guardians. Through estate planning, you may create trusts and other vehicles to protect your wealth against many risks, including youth and inexperience, overindulgence, old age and infirmity, divorce and remarriage, family disputes, business events, inflation, recession and taxation. The documents that set forth or effect your estate plan may include Wills, Living Trusts or other trust agreements, beneficiary designations, Buy-Sell or other business agreements, pre-nuptial, post-nuptial, divorce and separation agreements, Powers of Attorney and Living Wills.

The purpose of the estate planning process is to develop a plan that meets the needs of each client. It is a normal part of life for each client to have assets, family circumstances and personal interests that are unique to him or her. While many of the issues that arise may be similar from client to client, each client will also need to resolve issues in a manner appropriate to him or her. The attorneys in our estate planning department have a detailed knowledge of the law (including advanced degrees in the field of taxation) as well as extensive practical experience in and sensitivity to complex family and privately owned business dynamics that are often a significant part of estate planning.

If you have an existing estate plan, three reasons exist for reconsidering and revising it. First, your personal circumstances may have changed in some way, so that you may now wish to change beneficiaries, name different Executors, Trustees or Guardians, or provide for an heir in some special way, such as through a trust. The changes may be as simple as beneficiaries growing up, or may be more complex, such as the birth of a child, the death of a family member, a marriage or a divorce. Second, your assets may have changed, making different planning, including the consideration of lifetime gifts, appropriate to pass a larger portion of your wealth to your heirs instead of the government. Many sophisticated strategies exist for making lifetime gifts to avoid transfer taxes, including the use of tax benefits, such as the annual exclusion and the gift, estate and generation skipping tax exclusions, charitable gifts and valuation techniques, such as qualified personal residence trusts (QPRT's), grantor retained annuity trusts (GRAT's) and family limited partnerships (FLP's). Third, the laws, particularly the tax laws, may have changed.

The estate planning department also regularly administers estates and trusts on behalf of the firm's clients, and works with the firm's litigation department to resolve disputes that may arise over the disposition of estates and trust funds. Also, the law firm is actively involved in the preparation and creation of family planning issues including, without limitation, medicaid planning. In addition, the firm has significant experience in the preparation and implementation of special needs trusts and other similar arrangements for individuals with disabilities.