Probate Attorney Blog

Trusts: Everything You Need to Know When it comes to trusts I think the best place to start is at the beginning. Let’s talk about what a trust actually is. The best way to describe a trust is like a separate box where you can put anything you want and create a variety of rules for how property in the box is handled by the person in charge of overseeing the property (trustee). Depending on the rules you create for…

Wills: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know Before we get going I want to warn you: this is going to be long. And, by the way, if you ever ask yourself “do I need an estate planning lawyer to put together my will?” then this post will probably demonstrate, at least a little, why the answer to that question is “yes.” This post is intended to be useful for everyone. If you just want to scan through and see the…

Guardianship: If You Don’t Choose A Judge Will I have two kids, Blakely and Jackson. I have a third on the way (here VERY soon). I could not imagine a life without my kids. I can not imagine leaving my kids before I’m good and ready to. But tragedies strike every day. Everyone has a story of someone that left this world too early. So, while guardianship is a subject that isn’t fun or easy to tackle, it is a…

Business Succession Planning: Leaving a Multi-Generational Legacy One of the reasons I decided to become an estate planning attorney was to help business owners leave more than a pile of rubble when they pass away. I am a business owner myself. I’ve owned this law firm for almost eight years as of the writing of this. I’ve poured blood, sweat, and tears into this business. I’ve taken time away from my family for this business. I’ve spent countless amounts of…

#RichLifeLawyer Podcast 002: How to Choose a Guardian for Your Children I’ve helped a ton of people with their estate plans and a question I often get, and in fact, a question that often holds people up from taking action at all is: How Do I Choose a Guardian for My Children? It’s such an important decision and there are so many factors that go into it that actually making a final decision can be very difficult. In today’s podcast…

Estate Planning Lawyer Definitions: Inter Vivos This is a little segment I’m going to do called “Estate Planning Lawyer Definitions.” It’s easy for us to throw around terms all the time and expect people to know what they mean when in fact they should have no real reason to know. I want to end all of the confusion. Each week I’m going to define a term for you. This week we’re defining the word “inter vivos.” Inter vivos is latin….

#RichLifeLawyer Show 012: Five Success Principles Success is possible for all of us. As an estate planning attorney I’ve seen people go from nothing to everything by following a few simple ideas. These are those ideas. To get that and more, just listen to the show! Hey everybody, Christopher Small here, this is episode twelve of The Rich Life Lawyer Show, I’m excited to be here with you today. I’m gonna talk about success. I love talking about success. So…