Estate Planning, Estate Administration, and Probate

Regardless of the size of your assets, the necessary estate planning documents need to be in place to ensure your care and distribution of assets is according to your wishes. These documents include wills and trusts, power of attorney, letter of intent, healthcare directives, and guardianship.

Jennings Strouss leverages our unparalleled legal knowledge and business experience to provide individuals and businesses with expert counsel on estate planning, estate administration, and probate matters. We pride ourselves on being astute problem solvers and are only satisfied when our clients are happy. Our attorneys handle all aspects of estate planning and probate, including the implementation of sophisticated estate plans for clients, such as the drafting of traditional and complex wills, various types of revocable and irrevocable trust agreements, and family partnership agreements. They also assist in the preparation of trust documents, including living trusts, marital deduction and generation-skipping transfer tax trusts, irrevocable life insurance trusts, trusts designed for facilitating gifts to minors, and specialty trusts.

Jennings Strouss attorneys often act as counsel to trustees and administrators of large estates, assisting fiduciaries with fulfilling their duties, including representing personal representatives in administering estates. They also help trustees with the fulfillment of their obligations, such as funding trusts, distributing trust assets, interpreting trust instruments, and redrafting and amending trusts.

When clients face probate-related issues, our attorneys use their significant knowledge of state probate laws and experience in local probate courts to help resolve disputes. They assist heirs and beneficiaries with all types of probate litigation, including wills and trusts contests, trust accounting disputes, misinterpretations of will and trust provisions, guardianships and claims of mental capacity, undue influence, and fraudulent procurement.

The attorneys in the firm’s estate planning, estate administration, and probate practice also advise companies on business succession planning. Planning for the future of a business is particularly important for small, family-owned businesses, as well as those with multiple partners.