Our approach to planning is distinguished by two factors: sophisicated techniques and intentional design. We inform our clients as to the best methods to meet their individual goals, and then design a blueprint for implementation that integrates all of the chosen strategies into one comprehensive plan.
We advocate to all of our clients intelligent and efficient preparation for what the future can and will hold. We guide them through basic estate planning and assist their loved ones when, for disability or death, it comes time to administer or settle a client's affairs, whether in or out of court, with or without a plan. We counsel individual and institutional clients on establishing and managing compliant charities. We support businesses with our expertise in a broad range of enterprise formation, organizational, governance, and continuity issues including the deployment of ERISA-governed retirement plans, and we administer these plans for over three hundred clients. We advise clients on the income and transfer tax-sensitive use of life insurance and the preservation of built-up earnings in IRAs. We help them segregate and curtail the impact of both inside and outside liability through the utilization of domestic and foreign trusts and entities, and we endeavor to do all of these things from a fully-orbed legal and transactional perspective with integrity, grace, sensitivity, and good humor. We also strive not to instruct our clients on the art and science of clock-building, when they have asked the simple question, "What time is it?" Furthermore, after we have their final fee check, we make every effort to insure that their prudent investment in comprehensive estate planning is not squandered by a "put it up on the shelf" mistake.
Our firm's approach is personable, confidential, and informative, recognizing that estate planning and its related disciplines have an extremely important ethical dimension, and while we also appreciate that estate planning is, first and foremost, about people, we know when to focus our attention on process. Our mission with every client encounter is to ascertain the client's vision through sensitive discovery, aid them in formulating and articulating objectives, inform them of the range of their options without prejudice, make recommendations that comport with their goals, educate them about the costs and benefits of the techniques we recommend, obtain their personal and financial commitment to putting their plan into action, and then implement their plan in the highest standards of skill and professionalism with an eye toward fostering a relationship characterized by explicit trust and enduring longevity.
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