The most loving thing you can do for the people you love.
Without a plan, the law, not you, decides who raises your children, who controls your finances if you cannot, and who inherits the assets you have spent a lifetime building. Estate planning, done properly, is not paperwork. It is a love letter: to your spouse, your children, your business, your favorite causes, written in language a court will honor when you can no longer speak for yourself. We help you write that letter carefully, calmly, and at a flat fee, so you do exactly what you mean to do.
Why Work With Our Estate Planning Attorneys
There is no shortage of lawyers who can produce a will or trust. A small number of them sit with you long enough to do it well. Here is what working with our firm actually looks like:
- Step 1 — We listen. First meetings often run two hours, with no clock and no charge. We learn about your family, your assets, your fears, your charitable interests, and the people you would never want to be a guardian or executor: material no template will ever surface.
- Step 2 — We propose. You receive a clear written plan that lays out what we recommend, why, and what it costs: flat fee, no surprises.
- Step 3 — We educate. We walk through every document line by line. By signing day, you understand your plan as well as we do, and your spouse does too.
- Step 4 — We stay. We revisit your plan when life changes: births, deaths, marriages, divorces, moves, business sales, tax law changes, for as long as you want us to.
Personal Counsel, Not a Template
No two families are alike. No two estate plans should be either. Online services and high-volume firms hand out the same documents to everyone: same sentences, same defaults, same blind spots. We do the opposite. We draft from a blank page, every time, around your specific assets, your family, your charitable wishes, and the future you actually want to build.
Every plan we design is then walked through with you in plain English. By the time you sign, you understand exactly what you are signing and why every clause is there. That is not a courtesy. It is the practice.
Wills & Revocable Trusts
At the core of most plans is a carefully drafted last will and testament, a revocable living trust, or both. A will directs how your assets are distributed after death. A revocable trust can accomplish the same goals while avoiding probate, preserving family privacy, and providing seamless continuity if you ever become incapacitated. The wrong choice, or no choice, can mean a year of court delays, a public record of your private affairs, and tens of thousands of dollars in unnecessary fees and tax.
We advise on which instrument (or combination) best serves your family, and we draft them with the precision needed to hold up decades from now, in front of a court you hope your family never has to enter. The original will itself needs to be kept safe and locatable — we help with that too.
Advanced Directives
A complete plan also includes the documents that govern what happens if you are still alive but cannot make decisions. Without them, your family may have to petition a court to appoint a guardian for you: a months-long, public, expensive process that sometimes ends with the wrong person in charge of your life.
The fix is simple: a durable power of attorney (so a trusted person can handle your financial affairs), a health care proxy (so someone you trust makes medical decisions if you cannot), and a living will (so your wishes about end-of-life care are not a guess). These documents spare your family from painful courtroom guesswork at the worst possible moment, and they cost almost nothing to put in place.
Sophisticated Wealth Transfer
For high-net-worth families, we design wealth-transfer structures that move assets efficiently across generations and shelter them from unnecessary estate and gift tax. The toolkit includes irrevocable life insurance trusts (ILITs), intentionally defective grantor trusts (IDGTs), spousal lifetime access trusts (SLATs), qualified personal residence trusts (QPRTs), grantor retained annuity trusts (GRATs), charitable remainder and lead trusts (CRATs, CRUTs, CLATs), dynasty trusts, family limited partnerships (FLPs), and private foundations.
We also coordinate closely with your accountants and financial advisors so the legal plan and the financial plan move as one. Beneficiary designations on life insurance and retirement accounts often drive more wealth than the will itself, and we make sure they are aligned with the rest of the structure, including the latest SECURE Act rules.
Planning for Young Families
If you have young children, the most important decisions in your plan are not financial. They are guardianship and protection.
If something happened to both parents tomorrow without a plan in place, a judge who has never met your child would decide who raises them. Relatives could end up in court arguing over custody at the worst moment of a child's life.
The remedy is one document, signed in the right way, naming the people you trust. We walk young parents through these questions slowly and without judgment, then build a plan that grows with the family: children get older, assets grow, and the plan adapts.
Planning for Special Situations
Some families face questions a one-size-fits-all firm will miss. We have decades of experience with:
Special needs trusts (SNTs)
Structures that provide for a child or loved one with a disability without disqualifying them from SSI, SSDI, or other public benefits they rely on.
Snowbird & multi-state planning
For clients splitting time between New York and Florida or another state, including residency planning, multi-state probate, and Florida homestead and end-of-life rules.
Same-sex couples and unmarried partners
Estate planning, advanced directives, funeral and burial designations, and asset-protection strategies tailored to your family.
Solo agers and clients without close family
Aging without a spouse, children, or close relatives nearby raises real and practical questions. We help answer them.
Blended families and second marriages
Planning that protects children from a first marriage while providing for a current spouse, often with carefully structured QTIP trusts or marital agreements.
Digital estate planning
Planning for accounts, photos, and assets that live on phones, in the cloud, and behind passwords. Digital legacy contacts are a small step with outsized impact.
Regular Review
An estate plan is not a one-time transaction. Marriages, divorces, births, deaths, business sales, moves across state lines, and shifts in federal and state tax law all change the math. Plans should change with them.
Our clients stay with us for years and decades. We revisit their plans on a defined cycle and any time life forces the issue. Drafting a plan and disappearing is not a service. Staying is.
Estate Planning questions.
Do I need a will or a revocable trust?
Both pass assets to the people you choose, but they work differently. A will takes effect at death and is administered through Surrogate's Court in New York, or the equivalent court in New Jersey and Connecticut. A revocable trust holds assets during your lifetime and can pass them without probate, which usually means more privacy and fewer delays.
Which one fits depends on what you own, where you own it, and whether avoiding probate is worth the work of funding a trust. We walk through both before recommending either.
What happens if I die without a will in New York?
New York's intestacy statute decides for you. Under EPTL 4-1.1, if you leave a spouse and children, your spouse receives the first $50,000 and one-half of the residue, and the balance passes to your issue by representation. If you leave a spouse and no children, the spouse takes the whole estate. Where there is neither, the estate passes to more distant relatives in a fixed statutory order.
New Jersey and Connecticut have their own intestacy schemes, and they do not match New York's. None of the three account for stepchildren, unmarried partners, charities, or a beneficiary who needs a trust rather than a lump sum.
How often should I review my estate plan?
Every three to five years as a baseline, and immediately after a marriage, divorce, birth, death, business sale, significant change in net worth, or a move to another state.
Federal and state transfer tax thresholds are also adjusted periodically. A plan built around an older threshold can produce a result you did not intend.
What is the difference between a health care proxy and a living will?
A health care proxy names the person who makes medical decisions for you when you cannot make them yourself. A living will states what treatment you do and do not want.
The two documents do different jobs and most complete plans include both. The terminology, the statutory forms, and the way each document is given effect differ among New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, which matters if you divide your time between states.
I own property in more than one state. Does that change my plan?
Yes. Real property is generally governed by the law of the state where it sits, so out-of-state real estate can require a separate ancillary probate proceeding in that state, with its own court, its own timetable, and its own fees. It can also expose your estate to another state's estate tax.
Trust ownership, entity ownership, and transfer on death deeds are all ways to address it. Which one fits depends on the state and on the rest of your plan.
Is estate planning only for wealthy families?
No. Transfer tax planning matters more at higher net worth, but the parts of a plan that matter most to most families have nothing to do with tax: who raises your minor children, who makes medical decisions if you cannot, who has authority over your finances, and whether your family spends a year in court.
Those questions apply at every level of wealth.
