Importance of Estate Planning Lawyers
♫ Thursday, November 5th, 2009
Estate planning is what a person engages in while they are making out a last will and testament. They determine what will happen to all of the assets they own and who will benefit from such assets. Therefore, estate planning is extremely important, if you want to leave specific individuals your assets, like your home, your vehicle(s) or any form of money, you will need to write a legal will and indicate your selected beneficiaries. There are several steps you will need to take in order to cover all the bases.
Next, you will need to speak to a lawyer that handles wills and estates about writing up your will. A lawyer can assist you with all the legalities and can advise you of what you can and cannot do in terms of planning the distribution of your assets. You can find a lawyer easily enough using your telephone directory or you can find one on the Internet.
Illinois estate planning attorney, Christopher D. Dwyer, operates one of the premier estate law firms in Chicago area as an asset protection attorney with a concentration on business counseling, wills, trusts and probate. Chris now owns and runs his own law firm and is dedicated to providing personal service with the same degree of expertise that he employed at the large Chicago estate law firms. He is personally invested in his clients’ success and provides a hands-on approach to each client’s legal needs. He understands both the legal and personal aspects of your business affairs. His clients come from all walks of life, throughout the state of Illinois, across the nation and around the world.
After you have located a lawyer, you will sit down with the attorney and go through any documentation pertaining to your assets. At this time, you may also want to consider the possibility of creating a Power of Attorney, a statement giving control of your assets to your pre-selected individual if something should happen to you while you are still living and you, for whatever reason, cannot speak for yourself. Also, you may want to consider creating a Health Care Proxy, letting whoever is in charge when you can’t be, decide the type of hospital treatment you would prefer.
Finally, during the process of creating a will, you may want to establish one or more trust funds, referred to as “discretionary trusts” to those individuals that may be too young to manage any assets you give them in the event of your death.
Finding The Best Estate Planning Attorney For Your Family
♫ Monday, June 8th, 2009
Finding a good estate planning attorney is vital for the success of your estate plan. The best attorney would not be one who is just aware of the legal provisions related to how your estate would be transferred in the manner and to whom you want it to got to. He must possess other qualities also. First of all, he must be a team player. This is because crafting a proper estate plan is not the work of a single individual, but is the result of co-ordinated inputs by a team of accounting, taxation, finance, investment and legal professionals.
An attorney who focuses on real estate planning is much better placed to understand that estate planning requires much more than cut and dried legal advice. He builds a strong and long term relationship with you, which would in fact be much more than what generally exists between a professional and a client. He would help you through the intricate details of the legal requirements of transferring wealth and the related tax implications.
Additionally, he would want to lean the details of the aims that you might have regarding your estate. He would probe by having an intelligent dialogue so that you can express your desires and aspirations about yourself and those whom you love and care for.
A good estate-planning attorney would pay due recognition to all the other professionals from different disciplines, as he is aware of the importance of their contributions to the estate plan as a whole. He will ensure maintaining a meaningful dialogue with them, in the best interests of the client. Hence, you need to look for these traits, which are sure indicators of the quality of an estate-planning attorney. This is how you can find the best estate-planning attorney for your family.
Another good way to find an attorney or firm in your area that specializes in estate planning is to take a look at Cormac McEnery law firm in NYC. Their firm with thirty years of experience concentrating in estate planning, elder law, Medicaid planning, probate & estate administration, estate tax and estate litigation, positions us to provide the finest service. They make you a part of the process, encourage questions, and continually educate you in matters in which you may have little or no prior experience. Cormac McEnery provides highly personalized services to New York City, Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Westchester, Nassau and Suffolk Counties.
