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With higher education costs outpacing inflation by 5-6% per year, and the average cost of a four-year public school at nearly $20,000 per year (double that for private schools) it’s no surprise that many parents and grandparents are deeply concerned about how they will pay for higher education. Many of these clients are similarly concerned about estate planning.
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It wasn’t very long ago that we had only paper for financial and tax records. We could simply point to a file cabinet or drawer and tell someone, ‘Everything is in there when the time comes.’ But now we have computers and the internet, and so much of our lives is online. Unless we include our digital assets and social media in our estate planning, our family or administrator may not be able to find critical documents.
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With the number of online and do-it-yourself (DIY) legal providers continuing to grow, some of individuals may be wondering if they could do their estate planning themselves. The advertising is seductive: attorneys use similar forms, the cost is significantly less than hiring an attorney, Continue reading →

Anyone with children or modest assets should seriously consider some minimal estate planning, but the increasing number of blended families underscores the need for proper estate planning.

Blended families can involve children from a prior marriage as well as joint children, sometimes Continue reading →

A recent Forbes article claims that ‘70% of intergenerational wealth transfers fail,’ discussing a new Williams Group study examining the long-term effects of wealth transfers in 3,250 families. ‘Failure,’ according to the study, means situations where the heirs dissipated wealth, often with the family assets becoming a source of friction and dispute.
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