Estate Planning That Works

Using our Life and Legacy Planning® model, we help you make confident legal and financial decisions, so you can rest easy knowing your plan will keep everyone you love out of court and out of conflict, and that it will actually work when the time comes.

Our Approach

You care deeply about your family, and you want them to know precisely what to do, with a trusted advisor ready to step in if and when life takes a turn.

Complicated legal and financial decisions come with being an adult, but you were never meant to face them on your own.

Chances are you already sense that your life and your legacy add up to far more than money. What you may not know is how that belief becomes real documents like Wills, Trusts, Health Care Directives, and Powers of Attorney. Maybe you’ve even wondered whether you could handle it all yourself, given all the online tools being pushed at you every day that promise a do-it-yourself version of this important work.

What we know, and what we’ll help you see clearly, is that do-it-yourself estate planning tends to leave families confused and without direction. In some cases it even leads to losing the very assets you meant to protect. And by the time the gaps show up, it’s usually your loved ones who are left to untangle everything, with no way to fix it.

When you work with us, you’ll feel sure that you made wise choices about your resources while you’re living, and that your family will be left with real guidance and a clear path forward if you become ill, are hurt, or pass away.

We Help

Four Powerful Ways Your Life & Legacy Plan Protects Your Family

Your affairs stay private, you keep full control, you’re covered for every situation (even the ones that never crossed your mind), and you become a thoughtful steward of your legacy.

1. You Keep Everything Private

Here’s something most people don’t realize about probate court, which is exactly where your family lands if you never plan ahead or if you rely on a weak plan pulled off the internet. It’s entirely public. Everything you kept private while you were alive becomes an open record for anyone to look at. Rather than becoming the subject of a livestreamed hearing, plan now so your legal, financial, and family matters stay behind closed doors.

2. You Have Complete Control

With no estate plan in place, every major decision about your legal, financial, and medical life gets handed to a judge. That judge is stretched thin, has never met you, and knows nothing about your values, your family, or what you’re working toward. Instead of trusting a total stranger to interpret your wishes, take the reins now and put in writing who should act on your behalf.

3. You Cover All Scenarios

Internet wills and trusts are everywhere, but their biggest weakness is that these one-size-fits-all documents can’t account for the many situations your loved ones might face, situations shaped by your particular family and your particular assets. Our Life & Legacy Planning® process shows you how we protect everyone and everything you love, so that together we can build a plan that fully addresses your circumstances.

4. You Are Being A Good Steward

Life and Legacy Planning isn’t only about incapacity and death. It’s just as much about planning thoughtfully for the life you’re living right now. Our clients tell us again and again that this process leaves them better parents, stronger business owners, and more engaged members of their communities.

What We Do

We work with you to build a plan tailored to you, drawing on any of the following depending on what suits you and your family best. We’ve organized our services into flexible options, and every fee is flat-rate and agreed on up front, so nothing ever catches you off guard.

Wills, Trusts, and General Powers of Attorney
Health Care Directives and Medical Powers of Attorney
Guardianship Nominations (short and long-term) plus Confidential Exclusions, where appropriate
Asset Protection Planning
Special Needs Planning
Probate
Trust Administration

On top of that, we have systems built to keep your plan current through every season of life. When your life shifts, when your assets shift, when the law shifts, your plan will shift right along with them. We’re here through all of it.

You Don’t Want To End Up A Statistic

58%

According to Gallup.com

of U.S. adults have no Last Will. If you die without one, a stranger in a black robe decides everything for your family in the middle of their grief, possibly including who raises your young children.

$49B

According to Forbes.com

sits unclaimed as property across the U.S. When you leave no up-to-date list of your assets, those assets can slip away, never reaching the people you meant them for.

2 Years

According to LegalMatch.com

is the average stretch families spend in probate court. On average, families lose two years to a court process they could have avoided entirely.

Estate Planning That Actually Works

Your estate plan is meant to be far more than a will or trust you create once, tuck onto a shelf, into a drawer, or onto a hard drive, and never think about again. We know that if we simply hand you documents you never revisit, it’s your family who pays the price.

That’s why we don’t just produce paperwork you could have generated yourself online. Instead, we guide you through a warm, family-centered counseling process to uncover the planning you genuinely need based on your family and your assets, and to deliver a plan that truly keeps your loved ones out of court and out of conflict.

For a plan to keep working, it has to be revisited and refreshed over time, as your life changes, the law changes, and your assets change. That’s exactly why our Life & Legacy Planning Process includes our PFL FamilyCare Program™. The FamilyCare Program is built to make sure your plan evolves and grows alongside you and your family, in a way that’s efficient, effective, and affordable.

About Sheri L. Kelly

Hello, I’m Sheri L. Kelly, your neighborhood Personal Family Lawyer® attorney.

What I’ve learned is that your legacy reaches well beyond wills, trusts, and money. As your trusted advisor, I help you make the strongest legal decisions for your family, offering the kind of care and attention that once belonged only to the very wealthy.

My whole reason for doing this work is simple. I want to help families avoid falling apart after a loved one becomes ill or passes away. Our Life and Legacy Planning model looks after what happens to your assets, and it also sets you up to pass on what truly matters: your values, your priorities, your relationships, your life, your legacy.

Frequently Asked Questions About Estate Planning

What exactly is a last will?

A last will is the legal document you use to spell out where the property held in your name should go once you have passed away. It is also the place where you appoint the person, often referred to as your executor or personal representative, who will be responsible for gathering and distributing what you owned.

When you die, that will is submitted to the probate court so your estate can be settled through the court system. The good news is that court involvement is not inevitable. There are several planning strategies that let you spare your family the probate process entirely, and we walk you through those options together during a Life & Legacy Planning® Session.

Do I really need an attorney?

An attorney becomes essential the moment you decide you do not want to hand your loved ones a tangled situation to sort out. Plenty of do-it-yourself kits exist today, and some people even lean on a financial advisor or CPA to handle their planning. The catch is that this path often produces documents that look complete but quietly fall apart at the worst possible moment, dropping your family into court or conflict even when you were certain your circumstances were straightforward.

You have probably seen the headlines about wealthy public figures whose estates unraveled because they tried to shortcut the process or leaned on the wrong kind of help. So if you assumed you could take care of this yourself, there is no shame in that at all. Now that you are here, let us protect your family from the very real fallout that comes from misunderstanding what is at stake.

How much will estate planning cost me?

By far the question we field most often is what a will, a trust, or a full estate plan actually costs, and that is completely reasonable. It is precisely why we set our fees on a flat, no-surprises basis, and why our Life & Legacy Planning process is built to guide you toward the fee that truly fits you and the people who depend on you.

We are not able to name a number online or over the phone, because a real quote requires us to understand the details of your particular situation first. Instead, our Life & Legacy Planning approach helps you land on your own fee based on your family, your assets, and what you want to accomplish. That is right, you set the fee yourself, so you can feel confident you are paying exactly what makes sense for you.

What is a trust, exactly?

A trust is an arrangement between a Grantor, the person placing assets into the trust, and a Trustee, the person or organization that legally holds those assets, to manage them for a Beneficiary, the person meant to enjoy their benefit. When a trust holds title to your property, that property sidesteps the court process if you become incapacitated or pass away.

In a typical Revocable Living Trust, you personally fill all three roles during your lifetime. Then, if you become incapacitated or die, a Successor Trustee you have named simply steps into your shoes and makes sure the assets reach the Beneficiaries you chose. Trusts can also be irrevocable, which is useful for shielding assets or managing estate taxes, and those carry tax implications you will want to weigh carefully alongside a trusted attorney.

Is estate planning really only for wealthy people?

Not at all, and honestly the reverse is closer to the truth. If you are not wealthy, a broken or missing plan can hit your family especially hard. Every adult already has an estate. When you skip planning for what happens if you become incapacitated or die, you hand the people you love a heavy task, and they may lack the time, the know-how, or the funds to carry it out.

Poor planning is one of the main reasons family wealth erodes from one generation to the next rather than building over time. If your goal is to create lasting wealth for the generations who follow you, the time to plan is now.

What happens if I move?

Your estate plan remains valid wherever you happen to be within the United States, whether you are traveling through another state or relocating there for good. That said, we always suggest connecting with a Personal Family Lawyer® in your new area to look over a plan created elsewhere, so you can confirm whether any adjustments are needed to reflect the laws of that state.