Legacy Planning

The legal structure that decides what happens to what you built, and who can act for you when you cannot. It has to hold when the family is under strain and the person who wrote it is no longer there to explain it.

How we work

What we do

The documents, kept in step with the family and the balance sheet.

Trusts and titling

Revocable and irrevocable trusts, each designed for one job, and every account and property titled to match. A trust that is never funded does nothing.

Beneficiary designations

Retirement accounts and policies pass by their own forms, outside the will. We keep each one in line with the plan, and review them whenever the family changes.

Estate-tax liquidity

Estate tax is due in cash, and on a deadline. We plan where that cash comes from, so the company and the homes need not be sold to meet it.

TrustPropertyWillsTaxExitGovernanceLegacyPlanning

Part of one design

A plan is only as good as the people who carry it out. Legacy Planning aims to leave the trustee and the children knowing what was intended, as well as what was written.

We do

  • Design the plan with you
  • Keep titling and designations current
  • Plan the cash for estate tax
  • Brief the trustee and the family

Your counsel does

  • Your attorney drafts and executes the documents
  • Your trustee administers the trusts
  • Your accountant files the estate and gift returns

When it matters most

The moments that test an estate plan, and what we do in each.

All transitions

Liquidity Event

The sale of a business you own, or a large part of it. Years of concentrated, illiquid value become cash at a single closing, and the role that organized your life often ends with it.

Shares can move into trust before the sale is agreed, while their value is often lower.

Death of a Loved One

The death of a partner or family member. Grief and administration arrive together, and only the administration has deadlines.

The executor has the plan in hand, and the family is told what it means.

Marriage or Partnership

Two financial lives joining. Combining accounts and debts is the straightforward part, and reconciling what each person assumes money is for takes longer.

Titles, designations and the will are updated for two, with your attorney.

Becoming a Parent

The arrival of a child. Day-to-day time and autonomy contract sharply while meaning and experience expand, and the two changes are not felt on the same timescale.

A guardian is nominated and a trust for the child is planned, with your attorney.

1 of 4: Liquidity Event

Common questions

On a steady calendar, and straight away when something changes: a birth, a death, a marriage, a sale, a move to another state. Plans tend to fail by drifting out of date, more often than by being badly written.

Start with a conversation.

Tell us what is changing in your family. We listen first, and tell you plainly whether we are the right office for it.

All seven services