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Our Practice
Philosophy and Style of
Practice
Estate Planning
Probate
Administration; Guardianships and
Conservatorships
Taxation
Real Estate; Business
Practice
Tax Exempt Organizations
Elder Law
Philosophy and Style of
Practice
Rather than take on many different
types of cases, and do none of them well, we have chosen
to specialize in areas where we believe we have the
greatest level of expertise and can provide thehighest
quality of services to our clients. We try to make
the experience of consulting an attorney as painless as
possible. For all of our estate planning clients,
we offer a free initial consultation. At the end
of this consult, we can usually provide you with a
proposal for your estate plan, as well as a fixed fee
estimate to prepare the proposed documents. We are
usually able to provide fixed fee quotes for our
corporate and partnership formation clients as
well. Our remaining services are billed at our
normal hourly rates, which we will be happy to provide
upon request. For out of state clients, we are
happy to schedule telephone consults. For our
homebound clients, we can arrange house calls, although
there may be an additional charge for travel time. Top
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Estate
Planning - We work with our clients to
formulate a plan, and then prepare all of the
component parts that are needed to implement that
plan. This may include preparation of Wills,
revocable or irrevocable trusts, powers of
attorney and advance medical directives, such as
Medical Durable Powers of Attorney. We also
assist in planning for family members with special
needs, such as physical or mental
disabilities. We provide assistance with
business succession planning, including buy sell
agreements, and family limited partnership
formation. Many clients have charitable
goals with which we can assist them by means of
preparing documents to create a family foundation
or a charitable trust. We also have
significant experience in preparing estate plans
for unamrried and single sex couples. Top
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Probate
Adminstration; Guardianships and Conservatorships
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We have significant experience
in administering probate estates, both formal and
informal. We are most commonly asked to
represent the Personal Representative in
performing his or her duties, but have also
represented beneficiaries of the estate and
creditors pursuing claims against a probate
estate. We have represented clients in will
contests and other contested probate
proceedings. |
| Guardianships and conservatorships
are also a part of our probate practice. These
range from relatively simple proceedings, such as when a
minor needs a conservator to manage an inheritance, to
very complicated matters, where anincapacitated
person needs a conservator to manage a large estate and
a guardian to make decisions about all aspects of a
individual's personal care and medical treatment.
We are most often asked to represent the proposed
guardian or conservator in establishing a protective for
a minor or incapacitated person, but we have also
represented other family members, the incapacitated
person or minor in contesting the proceedings.
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Taxation -
We provide all taxation
services necessary for our estate planning and
probate estate administration practice. This
may include preparation of state and federal
estate tax returns, gift tax returns and fiduciary
income tax returns. Although we usually
prepare these returns in cases where we are
handling the probate administration of the estate,
in some cases we will prepare returns for an
estate that we have not administered.
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We represent many clients in
audits before the Internal Revenue Service. We are
also admited to practice before the United States Tax
Court. This enables us to represent clients in an
audit proceeding, before the IRS appeals office, and if
no resolution is reached, file a petition with the Tax
Court and represent our client in that
proceeding. Top
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Real
Estate; Business Practice - Our real estate
services range from providing assistance with a
simple residential for sale by owner contract to
providing the full range of services necessary to
complete complex commercial purchase, leasing and
finance transactions. Some of the services
we provide our business clients include the
formation of new entities, preparation of buy/sell
and stockholder agreements, preparation of joint
venture and partnership agreements, preparation
and review of leases, financing documents, sales
contracts and the like, and for those seeking to
leave a business, all of the documentation needed
to sell or otherwise transfer the business to a
new owner.Top
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Tax Exempt
Organizations - We can assist clients in forming non
profit organizations, from a charitable foundation to a
non profit corporation. Once the organization is
formed, we will work with our client to prepare and file
an application for recognition of exemption with the
IRS. We also counsel our tax exempt clients after
their exemption is obtained to ensure that they comply
with all federal and state requirements for non profit
organizations. Although we do not typically
prepare the annual infomation returns for tax exempt
organizations, we work with many accountants who do, and
are hapy to provide qualifed referrals to our tax exempt
clients.
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Elder
Law - "Elder Law" is not a term that
we coined, nor one we particularly like.
Our older clients don't have different laws
that apply to them, although many do have
different concerns. We perform estate
planning services for our elder clients in much
the same way that we do for our younger
clients. Many of our older clients are
concerned about incapacity and we counsel them
about powers of attorney, trusts and other steps
that they maytake to avoid becoming the subject of
an unwanted guarrdianship or conservatorship
proceeding. |
They may also be concerned about the cost
of long term care, and we can
provide assistance to them in navigating the
often confusing and contradictory rules of
Medicaid eligibility for long term care. Top
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