TRUST, PROBATE & ESTATES
Perhaps more so in estate planning than in any other area of law, we build life-long relationships. It’s more than the creation of the document called your trust or your will – it’s about knowing that as your family and estate grows, your estate planning keeps pace. The focus at Smith & Myers in on you. While at many estate planning law firms the relationship ends when you sign your estate planning documents, we see the signing of your documents as the beginning of our relationship with your family.
Over time, your assets will grow and change multiple times; kids mature from the small ones we all want to protect in the event of a parent’s premature death or disability to the mature adults capable of acting as trustee or agent of your estate in your old age; the law changes regularly on estate tax exemption amounts, rates and health care requirements. Your estate plan must keep up with all of these changes in order to make sure your plan works when your family needs it the most. We keep the focus on you with annual reminders reviewing what we have created and updating to your changed circumstances. The costs of failing to update are typically far greater than keeping your plan current.
With each of our estate plans we include a no-charge annual review to ensure that as our clients’ lives change, so does their estate plan. We organize your estate with a simple asset inventory that allows us to consider each of your assets and ensure they are titled in a manner allowing for maximum protection and ease of transfer to beneficiaries with minimum estate tax. We keep all our clients updated about changes in the law and issues that might affect their lives.
We will create your estate planning documents including:
- Living Trusts
- Wills
- Powers of Attorney
- Advance Health Care Directives
- Child Custodian Protection
Smith & Myers handles the trust and estate legal work for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles-Roman Catholic Archbishop, Catholic Charities of Los Angeles, Inc. and many individuals and privately held companies just like you.
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