Lambert & Lambert PLC offers a full range of succession planning, asset protection and allocation, and tax planning counseling for its clients' estate plans. We carefully analyze a client's individual needs and objectives, and advise as to the advantages and disadvantages of alternative approaches. By working in concert with bank officers, certified public accountants, trust officers, stock brokers, insurance representatives and other professionals, our firm strives to address the client's needs and interests. Services, encompassing estate planning, tax planning, and complex probate and non-probate administration issues, include:
- Wills
- Revocable and irrevocable trusts
- Living Wills
- Durable Power of Attorney
- Irrevocable Life Insurance Trusts
- Charitable gift planning
- Family LLCs, Corporations and Partnerships
- Generation-skipping and estate freeze planning
- Estate administration
The Will is the traditional anchor document - the estate plan must start here, but the well designed estate plan moves on quickly to other instruments in an effort to avoid probate. The testator's primary instructions regarding disposition of assets and care for loved ones are stated here.
The Trust forms the backbone of any well designed estate plan. We work with clients to assure protection of those with special needs, and to avoid "all at once" bequests to those who may not be prepared to fully handle such largesse. Our Trusts are comprehensive but accessible to those who must be able to interpret and apply them.
The Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust is becoming increasingly common, as in many cases half million or even million dollar policies cause clients to exceed the Unified Credit amounts allowed by Federal law, thus mandating proper use of this device.
For clients whose estates are scheduled to exhaust the Unified Credit, it is important to balance the desire to avoid the Estate Tax with the need to maintain control of the assets during one's lifetime, goals which are almost always conflicting. Many of the other devices noted above are offered to align the Estate Plan with these goals.
When the time comes, our firm can help advise the administrators of an estate with respect to the proper distribution of assets, liquidating liabilities, paying taxes, attending probate court proceedings and carrying out decedents' other wishes, including defending and/or prosecuting will contests.
Related Materials: The 2010 Estate Tax Gap
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