WILLS, TRUSTS, ESTATES & GUARDIANSHIPS

Our estate planning attorneys assist individuals, families, and their businesses, to achieve their goals of preserving assets during their lifetime and help insure that the inheritances which are left are directed in a manner that minimizes exposure to taxation, creditors, and marital issues.

 

Our guardianship attorneys compassionately represent the needs of individuals when their loved ones do not have the capacity to manage their financial or medical affairs. We represent families and other interested parties in cases of developmental disability once a minor turns 18, catastrophic brain injuries, those suffering from debilitating mental illnesses, and the cognitive deficits due to Alzheimer’s or other dementias, in seeking an adjudication of incapacity and the appointment of an guardian of the person and estate/property.  In the event a guardianship is not necessary, we work to determine appropriate alternatives including powers of attorney and conservatorships.

 

Our estate litigators have substantial experience representing institutions and individuals, both in their fiduciary capacities as executors or trustees, or individual capacity as a beneficiary or caveator, in a wide-array of probate and trust matters.  We assist clients in mounting challenges to wills, trusts, or other testamentary instruments if the execution was the product of undue influence, lack of capacity, or a defect on the face of the document. We also assist clients who have reason to believe that executors and administrators of estates and trustees have not complied with their fiduciary duties, and seek courts to compel formal accountings, have the fiduciary removed from service, and surcharged.

 

On the other side, we represent and defend personal representatives of estates involved in will challenges, formal accountings, breach of fiduciary duty allegations, and controversies regarding the administration of estates and trusts.