Estate Planning

Estate Planning is the concept of putting one’s personal and financial affairs in order so loved ones do not have an almost impossible task of trying to do so. Estate attorneys’ work consists primarily of two things: assisting clients in planning for disability and planning for death.

Typical Estate Planning Issues

Estate planning covers the a wide range of issues, for example:

• Creation of a Will or Revocable trust to provide for the care of minor children should both parents pass away.
• Ensuring special care for a needy family member, to the complex planning needed to eliminate or minimize the Federal and State taxes due on the passing of a person.
• Determining your goals and developing an appropriate plan to achieve them.
• Probate or other non-probate legal documents– required to pass ownership of property from a decedent to the survivors. Probate is a court process. However, it is only one of many methods to pass property from a decedent. Other methods to pass title to property are using revocable or irrevocable trusts, joint tenancies and beneficiary designations, just to name a few.
• Oregon’s new “domestic partnership” law, which allows same-sex couples to obtain many of the traditional benefits of marriage, but the new law may or may not reflect a couple’s intentions and affect their rights.

The skilled estate attorneys and legal assistants at our firm have the technical and the practical skills to advise you regarding Estate Planning and Probate or Probate alternatives. We pride ourselves on being good listeners so that we solve the problem in a way that meets your goals with least amount of cost to you. We tell our clients: “The only silly questions are the ones you do not ask.” We say this because if you do not ask questions, we do not know if we have done our job of giving you the best advice we can for your situation or made our advice clear to you. With combined years of experience of over 100 years, there is not a problem we have not solved or cannot solve while making sure you understand what is occurring and obtaining your desired result.

Attorneys Practicing in Estate Planning Include:

Frank C. Gibson
Richard L. Larson
Janice L. Mackey