Nobody enjoys thinking about what needs to happen if they become disabled or when they die. Many who have previously planned their estate find it confusing and don’t like the feeling of being told what to do. That’s not what happens when you work with us. The Family and Estate Legacy Program 7-step process begins with your goals and concerns, resulting in a plan that will give you and your loved ones comfort and clarity. Attorneys in our law firm are Board Certified in Estate Planning, Trust and Probate law, and we are licensed in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky. Our estate planning team will help you design an estate planning strategy that feels right for you and your family, whether it’s a simple will or something more substantial.

Your trust is ineffective if it isn’t properly funded. We see this all the time during our initial client meetings. When we update your estate plan, we don’t hand you an instruction sheet and expect you to fully and properly fund your trusts. We discuss funding during the Design process, we host a monthly funding workshop for our Legacy Club members, and we offer funding support by working with you and your financial firms to ensure that your accounts fit “hand in glove” with your estate plan. You are involved in every step of that process, but we provide you with the education, tools, and support you’ll need along the way.

Fact: Millions of people live in assisted living or nursing facilities in this country, And not one of them “thought” they’d end up there. About 70% of our aging population will need long term care at some point, and on average for three years. With the cost of care already high and steadily rising, it’s no surprise that these costs are the biggest threat to the wealth and savings of most American families. Medicaid has strict financial requirements which disqualify most people from the benefit. Working with our team to plan for the possibility of the need for long term care down the line mitigates the risk of shifting the physical, emotional, and financial burden to your family should you become disabled. Remember, estate planning is something we do in consideration of everything we have and everyone we love. It’s best to be prepared.

Most people that come into our office share this concern. And to be honest, most estate plans we see during our initial meetings provide no kind of assurances that assets you’ve worked hard to accumulate and save will end up in the right hands after you’ve passed away. Nearly every plan we develop with and for our clients protects an inheritance from: lawsuits and bankruptcy, divorce, the nursing home (once our children have aged), and from the quagmire of probate court. This means that the inheritance will be preserved for only those people you choose to provide for, and no creditor or predator who may seek to stake a claim to your money.

The after-effects of the 2008-2009 recession still linger across the Midwest, and many hard-working individuals and across the United States worry about how they’ll shield their assets or businesses from possible threats, especially aggressive lawyers and their clients. You’ve undoubtedly heard the old saying: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” This means that when it comes to protecting our assets, don’t wait until it’s too late! Asset protection takes on varying shapes and strategies depending on your values, goals, concerns, and nature of your assets. There’s good news: Ohio consistently ranks as one of the best asset protection states in the country. And our estate planning team continually sharpens its skills to remain on the cutting edge of asset protection law and strategies for the benefit of our clients.