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Provide yourself and your loved ones with protection and security by eliminating the uncertainties over your final wishes, maximizing the value of your estate and reducing taxes and other expenses.
Estate Planning begins with a planning meeting, to discuss your concerns, evaluate options, and identify your goals. We consider how things should be handled during your lifetime and during the lifetime of your spouse or other beneficiaries; what happens if you are incapacitated; and how your estate should be distributed upon death. We prepare wills, revocable trusts, durable powers of attorney, and advance health care directives to address those concerns and accommodate those goals. We explain how the trust should be funded with your assets, and we can assist with transferring your home and other real estate, and we can assist with transferring to the trust any LLCs or other business interests you own.
We give guidance on how to transfer bank and brokerage accounts to the trust, and how to complete beneficiary designations for retirement plans and life insurance. In some cases we also create irrevocable trusts such as irrevocable life insurance trusts (ILIT), charitable remainder trusts (CRT), or gifting trusts, for estate tax and wealth transfer planning purposes.
| Foundational | Comprehensive | Advanced Legacy | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Counseling, plan design & selection |
✔
|
✔ |
✔ |
|
Probate avoidance |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
|
Incapacity planning
|
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
|
Distribution planning
|
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
|
Guardian nominations (minor children)
|
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
|
Trust funding instructions
|
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
|
Retirement & life insurance designations
|
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
|
|
|
For spouse or children: |
For both spouse and children: |
|
Asset protection planning |
— |
✔ |
✔ |
|
Separate-property planning
|
— |
✔ |
✔ |
|
Distribution protection |
— |
✔ |
✔ |
|
Estate-tax planning |
— |
✔ |
✔ |
|
Legacy plan for spouse & children |
— |
— |
✔ |
|
Transfer documents |
1 included |
1 included |
3 included |
Personalized guidance to evaluate your goals, family dynamics, and financial picture — helping you choose the plan that fits your needs.
Assets in your trust bypass court-supervised probate — saving time and roughly $46,000+ in fees for the first $1M of estate value.
Your trustees and agents manage financial, medical, and personal decisions if you become disabled or incapacitated.
Control who inherits, when, and under what conditions — rather than relying on default statutory rules.
Nominate trusted guardians for minor children in the event of your incapacity or death.
Certification of Trust, written funding instructions, form letters, beneficiary designation forms. Transfer documents can include trust transfer deeds and assignments of stock or other business interests.
Updated beneficiary designation forms for retirement accounts and life insurance, ensuring these assets pass according to your plan.
Comprehensive Advanced
Structures designed to shield assets from creditors, lawsuits, and other
claims — protecting wealth for your spouse, children, and future
generations.
Comprehensive Advanced
Manage and distribute inherited or separate assets independently
from marital or community property — for example, leaving separate
property directly to children; or for children, keeping their inheritance
separate from their marital assets.
Comprehensive Advanced
Ensures beneficiary identity cannot be changed after death. Assets left
to a spouse will pass to your children upon their death — never to
unintended beneficiaries. Assets left to children will not pass to inlaws or divorcing spouses.
Comprehensive Advanced
For estates exceeding $15M per person or $30M per couple,
provisions allow assets to pass in ways that defer, minimize, or avoid
estate taxes.
Comprehensive Advanced
Generation-skipping transfer tax planning preserves more wealth
across generations — ensuring assets reach grandchildren and beyond
with minimal tax impact.
Advanced Legacy
All the advanced planning features apply to both spouse and children,
for maximum protection of your family and legacy.
Copyright © Michael T. Carney, A Professional Law Corporation – All Rights Reserved