Wills, Trusts & Estate Planning

Plan For Your Future

Glassman & Brown, LLP assists individual clients with estate planning, using wills, advance directives, and trusts. No one wants to think about death or disability. Planning for your future not only puts you in charge of your assets, it can also spare your family and loved ones the expense, delay and frustration too often associated with management of your affairs after disability or death. A well-designed estate plan should provide for your loved ones and charitable beneficiaries in accordance with your wishes. Your estate plan should avoid guardianship during your lifetime, minimize estate taxes and prevent delay in the collection and distribution of your assets after death.

A will is the legal document that directs who will inherit your property after your death. It nominates an Executor to manage your estate until its final distribution. If you do not have a will at the time of your death, your property passes by intestacy which means that the assets that do not have a surviving joint holder or designated beneficiary will be distributed according to the laws of the state in which you reside.

The most important and difficult parts of estate planning include deciding who is best suited to make financial and medical decisions for you if you are unable to make them yourself, and deciding who should serve as guardian for your minor children in the event of your untimely death. Executing Advance Directives, including a Durable Power of Attorney, Health Care Proxy and Living Will, can avoid the necessity for a guardianship proceeding, which can be a difficult and time consuming process. A simple will provision appointing a guardian for your children can help alleviate stress and anguish at a difficult time.

A lifetime trust or a trust created by will can be used for multiple purposes including estate tax minimization, care of a loved one, asset protection, and estate tax deferral for the benefit of a non-citizen spouse. Our attorneys work with you to prepare Revocable (Living) Trusts or other Inter Vivos Trusts, Irrevocable Trusts (including Insurance Trusts, Asset Protection Trusts, and Medicaid Asset Protection Trusts), and Supplemental Needs Trust (also known as Special Needs Trusts).

Our Approach

Glassman & Brown attorneys offer a highly professional, completely personal approach to the estate planning needs of our clients. We are also available to update and revise existing estate plans for clients as needs, life situations and laws change over time.