Probate and Estate Planning
Probate, Trusts, Estate Planning and Business Succession
Estate planning protects you and your assets in life, and it protects your intentions and beneficiaries when you die. We help our clients protect themselves, their families, their businesses and all of their other assets in life and in death by creating all estate planning and succession planning documents, advising clients on strategies and tools, and modifying plans, whether our firm created them or not.A comprehensive estate plan and trust documentation will enable you, your beneficiaries, trustees and fiduciaries to avoid estate disputes and other contests.
Our estate planning and probate attorneys in Texas handle planning, administration and probate matters for individuals, closely held businesses, corporate fiduciaries, professional fiduciaries, executors, administrators, trustees, conservators, guardians, charitable organizations, heirs and other beneficiaries.
Our team will help you implement tax reduction measures, establish efficient trusts and distribution vehicles, avoid protracted litigation, and preserve relationships.
Litigation and Alternative Dispute Resolution
We handle routine probate matters, complex litigation and appeals involving high-value business assets, estates, trusts, mineral rights and more. We work mindfully to either anticipate, avoid or pursue litigation in contested matters in our clients' best interests. Our lawyers' skills and experiences in all methods of alternative dispute resolution are major benefits to our clients when litigation can be avoided.- Matters our attorneys handle in estate planning and probate include the following:
- Documents and agreements
- Wills
- Health care directives or living wills
- Financial powers of attorney
- Shareholders' and buy-sell agreements
- Family limited partnership agreements
- Life insurance trusts
- Grantor retained annuity trusts
- Qualified personal residence trusts
- Generation-skipping trusts
- Charitable remainder trusts
- Lead trusts
Litigation
- Estate administration
- Will contests
- Trust disputes
- Will and trust interpretation
- Business succession and business disputes
- Estate tax disputes
- Breach of fiduciary duties, lack of capacity and undue influence
- Defense against claims of noncompliance with fiduciary duties
- Guardianship and conservatorship proceedings
- Enforcement of charitable bequests