Legal Life Planning for Families

I want to congratulate you on making it here and taking the first step toward planning for everyone and everything you love. I am grateful for the opportunity to help you secure what is most important to you. 

Whether you are here for Estate Planning or Long-Term Care Proactive or Crisis Planning, we can assist you.

No one wants to think about creating an estate plan, yet most people know they should have one.   

Planning is about taking control and making sure that YOU, not a court or a third party, decides what happens if you become incapacitated, or to your children if you pass when they are minors.  

It’s about making sure that the assets you have are immediately available (rather than tied up in court proceedings), and are not unnecessarily depleted (by court costs, appraisal fees, outside financial guardians, lawyers, etc.), in the event of your incapacity or death, and used fully to support the choices you make as to how you want to be cared for, and how you want your loved ones to be cared for. 

As a parent myself, I understand the concerns that many people with young children share. Questions like:

• What will the court do with my children if something happens to me and my partner today?
  
  
• What other decisions will the court make for my family if I don't plan ahead?
  
  
• What will happen to me and my affairs if I become incapacitated in an auto accident or have a medical emergency?

I also recognize that for those that are more senior, they may be facing a long-term care crisis. Seniors have a nearly 70% chance of needing long-term care services and support in the final third of their life. The average cost of inpatient long-term care is between $10,000 and $12,000 a month, and Medicare does not cover long-term care costs.  

Absent proactive planning or crisis mitigation strategies, seniors needing long-term care are required by Medicaid rules to spend down their entire life savings to below $2,000 before Medicaid will cover any of the monthly cost. While some states exempt certain retirement assets from this spend down, Virginia does not.   

No matter what, your family will have to make hard decisions, pay your bills, get access to your home and vehicle, when something happens to you.  

This can be easy for them during a time of extreme grief, or it can be hard. 

What you do now will determine how difficult or how easy it will be for them.  

And, if you have dependent children at home, planning is a must. You would never think of leaving your young kids or teens at home for an extended period of time with the one person you would never want supervising them - so why would you leave that to chance for a substantial part of their lives if something happens to you? 

The planning session I provide is designed to be educational and empowering. After a thorough process of learning about your family dynamics and assets, I illustrate what would happen under Virginia law absent planning. I then empower you to decide what you like or do not like about those outcomes. For the outcomes you do not like, I offer planning options to change the result.   

The cost savings and other benefits of planning that are discovered through this process almost always vastly exceed the expense of planning. 

However, if it turns out you don't need any planning beyond the planning session, you leave the session educated, informed, and feeling great that you have done the right thing by your family by investigating what's necessary to make things as easy as possible for them at the end of your life.  

If it turns out you do need legal work beyond the planning session, we will work together to determine what’s right for you and your family based on your needs, your budget, and your stage of life. And most importantly, we make sure that whatever gets put in place stays up to date and continues to work throughout your lifetime. 

I look forward to learning your story, hearing what matters to you, and helping you discover what is needed to keep your loved ones out of court and out of conflict when something happens to you or them. 

If you would like to move forward with a planning session, the first step is to start with a 15-minute introductory phone consultation. In the meantime, feel free to download some of the free resources available on this site.

Schedule your FREE 15-minute consultation and speak with us personally about your family.