Pasternak & Fidis :: Comprehensive Estate Planning

Estate Planning Services above and beyond the ordinary.

Pasternak & Fidis provides sophisticated, comprehensive estate planning that reaches across all our departments to help individuals, couples, families and family businesses. Each of our senior estate planning attorneys brings more than 25 years of experience to our clients, offering a coordinated approach that goes well beyond wills and trusts.

Effective tax planning, for example, is critical. We structure estate plans to take advantage of all available deductions, exemptions and exclusions.

Disability and health care are also crucial considerations. Here again, we work to ensure our clients’ needs are met and their wishes respected, especially in issues such as incapacitation and important health decisions.

Real estate interests, closely held businesses and other enterprises also require special attention. We combine tax expertise, business knowledge and common sense to help protect and preserve our clients’ wealth for generations to come.

Complications and disputes can arise with any estate. We are experienced in working with complex family structures, including step-families and domestic partners. We can litigate if necessary, but we prefer working to calm any disagreement, listening to all parties, developing an appropriate strategy, and crafting the proper plan.

Our services include:

Preparing wills and trusts that incorporate specific estate planning needs, including generation-skipping trusts, special needs trusts, charitable trusts, marital trusts and asset protection trusts
Advice on selecting appropriate fiduciaries, including personal representatives, trustees and guardians
Comprehensive guidance on designating beneficiaries of life insurance policies and retirement accounts
Business succession planning, including setting up the business structure during one’s lifetime and preparing for the disposition of the business at death
Charitable gift planning, including charitable lead trusts, charitable remainder trusts, private foundations and other transfers to charity
International estate planning for resident aliens and U.S. citizens with non-citizen spouses or foreign property
Asset protection planning, including advice about titling assets, designing trusts to protect assets from creditors and implementing other transactions designed to preserve the family’s wealth
Planning for potential incapacity through the use of powers of attorney, standby guardians for minor children, and advance health care directives
Assisting clients with the transfer of vacation homes from one generation to the next, in ways that are tax-efficient and designed to promote family harmony
Working with our divorce and family law attorneys to provide comprehensive premarital planning as well as post-nuptial and domestic partnership agreements for opposite sex and same-sex couples

Pasternak & Fidis has cultivated strong relationships with other professionals. We work regularly with our clients’ accountants, insurance agents, appraisers, financial planners and investment advisors. This coordinated, comprehensive approach makes our estate planning even more effective.

If you are interested in our Estate Planning Services we invite you to call for an appointment. We ask our new estate planning clients to complete an estate planning information form in advance of our initial meeting. Our three forms are listed below. Please print the form that is applicable to you, complete it and bring it with you to our initial meeting.