Primary Practice Areas

Wills, Trusts, and Estates is what lawyers call the area of law that is largely governed by the Estates Code and the Trust Code. The two sides of this area of law are estate planning or probate law. Estate planning is planning for one's death or incapacity. Probate law is executing that plan.

Estate planning

Estate planning involves the preparation of documents typically including some or all of the following: a will, trust, power of attorney, medical power of attorney, and directive to physicians (often referred to as a living will).
More complicated estates may include setting up entities such as limited liability companies or limited family partnerships. 

Probate

Probate is the area of law in which an estate plan is executed or contested. This is where a will is taken to court and probated, literally meaning proved. If there is no will, this is where a deceased's heirs are determined. Probate also covers the administration of a deceased's property and the settling of his or her affairs.

aNCILARRY PRACTIC AREAS

In the course of practicing estate planning and probate law, an attorney must touch on other areas of law such as real estate and entity formation.
Real estate law is a vast area of law that stretches from transferring land to what can be done with land, such as zoning issues, to fights over who owns land. Our practice focuses mostly on transferring land from one person to another.
Entity formation is an area of the business law practice that focuses on forming LLCs, corporations, and various forms of partnerships.
While we usually practice real estate law and entity formation in a probate or estate planning context, we are capable of handling such situations independently of those contexts.