Wills, Trusts, Estate Planning & Administration

Pender & Coward attorneys provide assistance with all facets of trust and estate planning and administration. Our attorneys often work closely with a client’s other advisors including accountants, financial planners, investment managers, trust department officers, and insurance advisors, as well as other attorneys with related practices at Pender & Coward, to collaboratively ensure our clients’ benefit from the collective knowledge of their team of chosen professionals.

We listen closely to the unique needs of each client. The members of our Trusts & Estates Group are skilled in creating comprehensive estate plans for the distribution and protection of assets, which can help minimize estate and other transfer taxes and maximize the assets passed to beneficiaries. We listen closely to the unique needs of each client and provide carefully tailored and personalized instruments to meet each client’s specific needs and goals.

Our attorneys assist with and administer trusts and estates, whether simple or complex, modest or substantial. We also guide clients through the oftentimes emotionally overwhelming process involved with guardian and conservator appointments.

CLIENT AND FIDUCIARY SERVICES:

• Estate planning
• Estate, income, gift and generation-skipping transfer tax planning, including –
• Wealth transfer planning
• Planning with family and closely-held businesses
• Asset protection planning
• Estate administration (e.g. probate)
• Trust administration
• Guardianships and conservatorships
• Special needs planning
• Elder law
• Medicaid planning
• Veterans benefits planning
• Power of attorney instruments
• Advance medical directives
• Fiduciary litigation
• Irrevocable life insurance trusts [ILIT]
• Charitable lead trusts [CLT]
• Charitable remainder trusts [CRT]
• Grantor retained annuity trusts [GRAT]
• Will contests
• Power of attorney abuse
• Breach of fiduciary duty