ESTATE PLANNING
Thorough estate planning, including an updated will, ensures your wishes are recorded and carried out after you’re gone. This protects your beneficiaries from expensive and time-consuming court proceedings.
It may never feel like the right time to compose a will, but Attorney Richard Donnelly’s years of experience and estate planning expertise will make the process straightforward and stress-free.
I developed a passion for estate planning in my previous career as a police officer. I witnessed firsthand hundreds of tragedies and how life can change with the blink of an eye. Whether it was a single mom involved in a fatal car accident, an accidental shooting, drowning, elderly grandmother walking the streets lost, or a domestic dispute between a couple, I learned quickly that if these individuals did not take the time to plan for the future of their loved ones their property could be lost forever or involved in a lengthy and costly court dispute.
I decided to focus on estate planning with a desire to help families the moment I started law school. Estate planning is something that affects every area of your life. You, your assets, your family and all those things will change many times before your death. Not to mention, we know the law will change many times. Your plan has to keep up with those changes. Without an estate plan, your loved ones may suffer and your property may be lost.
There are many legal strategies involved in estate planning, including wills, revocable living trusts, irrevocable trusts, durable powers of attorney, and health care documents. Each of these documents is important, but the most crucial aspect of an estate plan is the alignment of the assets, so they are distributed according to your wishes at the time of your death. Many people equate estate planning with documents. Properly drafted documents are important, but people are often surprised that wills do not avoid but guarantee probate court. The way assets are titled and how beneficiaries are named is often more important than the documents themselves.
We learn what your family needs by scheduling a meeting that can last up to two hours. The goal of the meeting is to learn about your family dynamics, and your assets, and then educate you about the law, so you can choose the planning that’s right for you, and the people you love, and even choose the fee for the planning you want.
All of our fees are flat fees agreed to in advance so there are no big surprises.