legacy assurance program

Legacy Assurance Program

Our Legacy Assurance Program™ has been developed to offer you the power to plan for both yourself and your loved ones and to provide you with the peace of mind that your estate plan will work as you intended.

As a participant in our Legacy Assurance Program™, you can be assured that your estate plan remains “state of the art” - regardless of changes in your life or changes in the law.

We at Blustein, Shapiro, Frank & Barone, LLP have created the Legacy Assurance Program™ to put you in ultimate control of your estate plan. Our attorneys bring years of customized estate planning expertise to the table. We work with your accountant, your financial advisor, and your insurance advisor to protect assets, enhance wealth, and save taxes.

Legacy Assurance Program™

By providing in-depth counseling, and not just cursory word-processing, we empower you to control your own affairs when you want and the way you want.

Common estate planning pitfalls: 

  • Unforeseen costs
  • No consideration for illness/disability
  • A plan that is easily challenged
  • Outdated/ineffective documents at time of death
  • Assets left unprotected against the high costs of long-term care
  • A failure to minimize estate, gift, and income taxes 

Our Estate PlanningProbate, and Elder Law department, headed by firm partner Richard Shapiro, creates a customized plan specific to your needs, goals, and aspirations. As a result of our in-depth counseling sessions, we learn about your family members and family dynamics as well as your financial picture, each of which plays a vital role throughout the planning process. We use our state-of-the-art document creation software to draft customized estate planning documents to fit each client’s particular circumstances. Those documents can include wills, revocable and irrevocable trusts, powers of attorney, and health care documents.

But having the best estate planning documents is not enough to assure a successful result. Our Legacy Assurance Program™ also includes our in-house asset funding program. Our attorneys and funding coordinator work with each client to determine the appropriate form of ownership for each asset (e.g., individual, joint tenancy, or – most commonly – a trust), as well as working with the proper beneficiaries for retirement plans, annuities, and life insurance policies.

Once the appropriate funding arrangement is determined, our firm prepares all the necessary paperwork and supervises the process to ensure that the funding is, in fact, completed as designed.

Maintenance & Settlement

The Legacy Assurance Program™ also incorporates a maintenance program as an essential part of any client’s estate plan. To offer the highest level of protection, your estate plan must be regularly reviewed to address changes in the law, changes in your life, and changes in your attorneys’ knowledge and experience. Our maintenance program features annual client update meetings to keep our clients abreast of the latest developments in estate planning, elder law, and tax legislation. Our Legacy Assurance Program™ also provides every participating client with updated documents that ensure the client’s plan is kept current with their changing personal circumstances, as well as the changing world around them.

The final step in the Legacy Assurance Program™ is a settlement of an estate upon a client’s disability or death. Our firm handles all phases of estate administration, including preparation and filing of federal and New York State estate tax returns, when necessary. Participants in our Legacy Assurance Program™ are assured that their estate settlement process will be handled by experienced attorneys and staff at a controlled cost that is incorporated in

2nd Edition
SECURE YOUR LEGACY:
Estate Planning and Elder Law for Today's American Family

By Richard J. Shapiro, J.D., CELA, CAP

“...all written in plain English... quite readable and practical. I highly recommend it.”

WEALTH PRESERVATION TEAM