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• Outdated/ineffective documents at time of death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 Planning, Probate, 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.