Love makes a family. But when it comes to legal rights, love alone doesn’t always provide the protections you might expect. For LGBTQ+ couples and families, estate planning is about more than deciding who inherits your property. It’s about making sure the people you love can make decisions for you, care for your children, and...Read More

We do so much online now, from sharing family photos to paying bills. Cybersecurity Awareness Month is a reminder to be thoughtful about the information we share and the people we trust. Planning ahead also means choosing who can make decisions for you and making your wishes clear, so your loved ones have a clearer...Read More

You bought the policy because someone depends on you. That was an act of care, even if it felt like one more form to finish between work, dinner, and everything else. Now you have a trust and a question: should your life insurance beneficiary still be your spouse? When I review this with you, I...Read More

You and your spouse have planned for the future. You’ve named each other as beneficiaries, created a trust, and talked about how the surviving spouse will care for your family when one of you is gone. But what happens when neither of you is there to carry on? What if you and your spouse die...Read More

You bought the policy when your first child was born. You chose an amount that felt enormous, named your spouse as the beneficiary, added the premium to autopay, and felt the relief of knowing your family would have financial support if you died. You took an important step to protect your family. A life insurance...Read More

You did it. Maybe Make-A-Will Month finally moved it to the top of your list. Maybe you’ve been meaning to get this done for years, and this was the month it finally happened. Either way, you sat down, signed the documents, and walked away with something many families never get around to doing. That matters....Read More

January gets all the credit for fresh starts. We buy new planners, make resolutions, clean out closets, swear we’re going to drink more water, and convince ourselves that this is the year we’re finally going to become the kind of person who remembers to bring reusable bags into the grocery store. And then January happens....Read More

When I heard about Tenisha Warner’s lawsuit, my first thought wasn’t about the celebrity angle. It was: I’ve seen this before. Not the exact same story, but the same estate planning gap. A family where the right intentions were there. Where conversations happened. Where commitments were put in writing. And where, according to the complaint,...Read More

A family called me after their mother died. She had a will that was properly signed and perfectly valid. However, it didn’t tell anyone who had legal authority to care for her minor children in those first critical days, who could handle financial matters while her estate was being settled, or how she wanted her...Read More

How to have the estate planning conversation with the people you love without making it weird. There’s a phrase most of us remember from decades past: “Friends don’t let friends drive drunk.” It was simple, direct, and it worked, because it reframed a difficult conversation as an act of friendship, not judgment. The same logic...Read More