It’s Never Too Early to Make Your First Will

We’d like to share with our readers a recent article in Forbes entitled How To Write Your First Estate Plan.  This article supports something we’ve been saying in our blog all along: That everyone needs a will—whether you’re a young couple just starting out, an established family with valuable assets to protect, or an entrepreneurial… Read More »

Not Just Estate Tax Anymore

Anyone who has been following our blog knows that the expiring Bush tax cuts (including the repeal of the estate tax this year and the tax’s reinstatement next year) have given lawmakers no end of trouble as they struggle and debate—and debate and struggle—to agree on new tax legislation moving forward. In fact, The Wall… Read More »

The Comfort That Comes With Planning Ahead

Everybody thinks it won’t happen to them. Or rather, everybody knows it’s going to happen to them eventually, but nobody thinks it’s going to happen tomorrow, or next week, or even next year. The “it” of which I speak is, of course, death. It is this perceived immortality that allows so many people to put… Read More »

Heirs Pay the Price for a Do-It-Yourself Estate Plan

A recent article in U.S. News and World Report has brought the battle between professional estate planners and Do-It-Yourself document proponents out into the open. As author Kimberly Palmer points out in the article, lawyers believe Do-It-Yourself is dangerous when it comes to estate planning, and they will certainly tell you so when asked. But… Read More »

The Receiving End of Estate Planning

We publish a lot on this blog about preparing your estate plan: writing a will, setting up a trust, choosing beneficiaries and nominating guardians; but there is another side to estate planning, a fun side… the receiving end. You may assume that the receiving end of estate planning is the fun and easy part, but… Read More »

Going Beyond Legal Language with an Ethical Will

Estate and Legacy planning documents are often seen as difficult, and boring pieces of paper—which in some ways is exactly what they have to be in order to someday withstand tough legal scrutiny; but unless you’re an attorney who is practiced at reading the sentiment between the lines of dry legal jargon, these documents don’t… Read More »