Keeping Your Family Out Of Court And Out Of Conflict

Planning for Everyone You Love and Everything You Have

Do you know what would happen to you, your loved ones, your money, and everything else you care about if something unexpected happened to you?

If you have an estate plan and it’s out of date, your assets could be lost to the Massachusetts Department of Unclaimed Property (currently holding over 2.4 billion dollars!), or to an unnecessary and potentially messy Court process.

If you don’t know exactly what would happen for everyone you love and everything you own, then the first step is to learn exactly what would happen, legally and financially, so that you can decide if you are okay with the current state of your affairs. (And you might be!)

How Do We Help You With Estate Planning?

We conduct a Family Estate Planning Session, where we spend time together and you’ll get informed.  Before your Family Estate Planning Session, you will complete a Family Wealth Inventory and Assessment, which will help you to get clear about what you own and what you have to think about when it comes to planning for the well-being and care of your loved ones. If you decide the current state of affairs is unacceptable, and if we both decide that it’s a fit to work together, then we can design an estate plan together that will best suit the needs of your family. There is never any pressure to move one way or another.

The foundation of your estate plan will often include a Will, Power of Attorney, Health Care Proxy and generally a Revocable Living Trust.  One of the benefits of a revocable living trust is that, when done correctly and maintained over time, your estate plan should help your family to avoid the cost and delay of probate and minimize or eliminate estate taxes.

Can I DIY My Estate Plan?

Unfortunately, most plans don't work because much of what passes for estate planning is little more than word processing.

You are asked a few questions and then the drafter decides which "plan" is right for you, and fits you into a template.

This is not estate planning; it is little more than a “search and replace” of your family’s name and then a hit of the “print” button which spits out form documents.

We Are Professional Estate Planners

Your Personal Family Lawyer® at 20West Legal will educate you, take the time to get to know you, your family, your concerns, your goals, and your issues, and will gladly answer all your questions to produce an estate plan that is exactly right for you to keep your loved one’s out of court and out of conflict.

If you are a family with young children, then your estate plan should begin with a foundation that ensures your children would always be taken care of, no matter what happens.  At 20West Legal, one of our areas of greatest expertise is protecting minor children.

For those anxious to dive in, you can read about all the components of an Estate Plan here.