Estate Planning and Probate Administration

Estate Planning, including gift, trust and tax planning, seeks to ensure that a client’s assets will be available to those persons and organizations which the client wishes to benefit upon his or her death. Proper planning starts with ensuring that a client’s affairs are in order while living, which frequently takes advantage of living trusts. Wills are an important part of the planning also, although consideration of planning in such a way as to avoid the probate process altogether, and to minimize the potential impact of estate taxes, is also a part of the careful review we undertake of a client’s personal and financial situation.

Estate Planning also presents the opportunity for a client to nominate a person or persons who will have the legal authority to make, or communicate, health care decisions. The form usually employed for these purposes is a health care proxy, which can be as simple or elaborate as the client’s wishes require. Estate planning also invites the question of whether the client can benefit from a power of attorney, either general or one whose authority “springs” into being.

Our practice in this area also focuses on when and how a personal or family or corporate trustee can help in the management of a client’s affairs. We serve as personal and family trustees if requested and when appropriate.

Probate Administration, including estate and trust administration and settlement, incorporates the tracking of every asset and ensures its proper ultimate disposition in accordance with the decedent’s wishes as expressed by will, trust (living, testamentary or otherwise) or other defining documents executed during the decedent’s lifetime. We are experienced in all aspects of proper accounting, reporting and taxation. We are skillful in advising on pre-death strategies which can maximize tax savings and ensure smooth asset management for the benefit of the client and his or her family.

We also represent Executors and Trustees in the administration of their estates, including representation in litigation regarding trusts and contested wills. We also represent beneficiaries and parties at interest regarding their rights in the administration of estates and trusts.

All attorneys are active in probate litigation, assisted by the firm’s experienced paralegals Mary DePasquale and Lisa Rich.