Effective Estate Planning remains a ubiquitous need for clients young and old, working class and wealthy, business owners and individuals. Our firm works with all clients to implement estate plans that achieve the present generation’s objectives while providing for the maximum transfer of assets to future generations. Such plans often focus on minimizing tax burdens, while protecting a client’s assets from the claims of parties other than the intended beneficiaries. Our lawyers have extensive experience in the design and implementation of comprehensive estate and business plans for its individual and corporate clients. Effective planning in today’s environments must consider the myriad types of assets and financial products that are available to todays investors, including qualified and non-qualified retirement accounts, educational investment accounts, life insurance, other insurance vehicles such as disability and long term care products, annuities, non-traditional investments, publicly traded and non-publicly traded investments, debt instruments, as well as hybrid arrangements. Therefore, advisors must be able to assimilate the tried and true sound estate planning strategies with the complexities of today’s family unit.

Phifer Pinkham’s estate planning experience includes the preparation of wills and trusts, family limited partnerships and LLC’s, grantor retained annuity trusts, qualified personal residence trusts, intentionally defective trusts, including irrevocable life insurance trusts as well as spousal life time access trusts, charitable trusts, qualified terminable interest trusts, qualified domestic trusts, private annuities, and other planning vehicles all for the purpose of accomplishing the client’s goals in the most efficient, easily implementable manner appropriate for each circumstance.

For the family business owner, additional complexities include business succession issues, equitable distribution of assets, estate tax minimization and funding of estate tax liabilities with illiquid assets.

Whether it is planning for large or small estates, complex or straight forward, each client is important to the firm. Our planners take a customized approach to analyzing each individual client and each particular circumstance to formulate a personalized estate plan that meets the client’s objectives. We guide our clients and their families through the process efficiently and conveniently while we carefully consider the legal complexities and implications of each aspect of the plan.

For our estate administration clients, we provide the same approach by guiding the client through the complex process of transitioning a family’s assets to the appropriate beneficiaries upon the death of a loved one.