We’re here to help.

If you are responsible for settling the legal and financial affairs of a loved one (often referred to as “administering the estate”), the list of tasks and duties involved can be stressful and confusing. In a recent study, 85% of people surveyed reported that the process of administering a loved one’s estate took longer or much longer than they expected. In addition, over 80% reported that the most stressful part of the administration process was feeling like they didn’t know what to do and being afraid that they would make a mistake. Because legal or financial mistakes can potentially cause the estate to lose money, create family tensions, or even land an estate executor in personal legal trouble, it makes sense that these tasks can feel particularly stressful.

Our goal is to make the estate administration process as easy and cost-effective for you as we possibly can. We provide you with the legal education and advice you need to understand exactly what the estate administration will involve, and what tasks will need to be completed—from start to finish.

Getting Started: The Estate Administration Strategy Meeting

We’ve heard from many families that one of the most stressful early challenges of administering an estate can be simply trying to understand what exactly you need to do, whether you should hire a lawyer, who to hire, and how much it should cost. Our initial Estate Administration Strategy Meeting is designed to help you answer these important questions in a cost-effective manner, before you commit to hiring an estate administration lawyer—whether us, or another firm.

The Strategy Meeting is a free, 1-hour working consultation, where you and one of our attorneys will review the estate together. We will walk you through the list of tasks that need to be completed to administer the estate, from start to finish. The goal of this meeting is to provide you with the education and guidance you need to make informed decisions about whether to hire an attorney, and what to expect from them if you do.

Prior to your Strategy Meeting, we will receive a link to an online client portal, where you will provide important information and documents related to the estate and known estate assets. Having this information in advance allows your attorney to be fully prepared to discuss the details of your particular estate administration and ensures that you will get the most value out of your meeting time. We understand that you may not have complete asset information yet. information about As part of this meeting, we will also run an Assets & Liabilities search for the decedent (through our financial services partner, Trustate) to help confirm that all estate assets are accounted for.

At the Estate Administration Strategy Meeting, you and your attorney will:

• Review the list of known or suspected estate assets; discuss whether an additional Assets & Liabilities search is necessary.

• Review any relevant estate documents (e.g., Will, Trust, deeds, financial documents), create a list of beneficiaries, and identify any potential problems or concerns that could delay the administration process.

• Create a list of all individuals who would be required to receive notice of any court proceedings related to the estate (and/or a copy of the Will/Trust, if applicable), and identify whether any contests or conflicts are anticipated.

• For each known asset/account: review how the asset is titled, how the law applies to that asset, and how it is legally required to be distributed.

• Identify which accounts/funds you can access and use immediately for estate expenses, and discuss your obligation for tracking and accounting for those funds.

• Review the Estate Administration tasks that will need to be completed, and a timeline for each. We generally break tasks down into six phases of administration:

Phase 1: Estate Opening (including probate petition, if required)

Phase 2: Asset & Liability Discovery

Phase 3: Asset & Liability Management

Phase 4: Payment of Debts, Expenses, & Taxes

Phase 5: Distributions to Beneficiaries

Phase 6: Estate Closure, Settlement, & Final Distributions

• Identify which tasks you think you want to do yourself, and which tasks you might want to hire a lawyer for.

• Discuss your particular areas of concern, stress, or anxiety in the administration process, and possible strategies and options for minimizing these concerns.

• If appropriate, your attorney will provide you with a proposed Estate Administration Plan and flat-fee quote for our firm to provide estate administration services. If you choose to engage our firm to support you through the administration process, we want you to understand exactly what our fees would be, and what services are included.

If you decide to engage our for additional estate administration services, we have developed our process and systems to make things as easy as possible for you throughout the entire administration process. In addition to performing traditional legal work on your behalf (e.g., court paperwork and proceedings, negotiating settlement of debts), we can complete many non-legal administrative tasks for you (e.g., closing or transferring accounts, filing life insurance claims), through our partnership with a specialized, cutting-edge financial services firm (Trustate). Because of this partnership, we are usually able to take the vast majority of these time-consuming “paperwork” tasks off your plate at a low cost. Our all-inclusive, flat-fee model ensures that we can always provide the greatest possible support and cost-certainty to you throughout the entire estate administration process.

If you’d like to schedule your Estate Administration Strategy Meeting, or discuss whether that meeting is a good fit for your needs, please call us at (518) 309-2252, or schedule a free 15-minute introductory call online.