Creating an effective estate plan gives you the opportunity to help the people you care about most after you are gone.  In addition to making sure that your assets go to the person or persons you want, an effective estate plan can also save money and increase the chance that your minor children will be raised in a home that you believe to be supportive of the values that you embrace.  It can also provide a vehicle to make sure that your beneficiaries get their inheritance at the right time when they are mature enough to preserve what they receive.

There are many tools available to the skilled estate planner.  Various wills, trusts, powers of attorney, advance health care directives, and business entities, such as a family limited partnerships, are available to be applied when a particular situation calls for them.  However, these tools must be used at the right times and in the right situations.  By choosing the right estate plan, the effective estate planning attorney makes sure that his clients don't have a more complicated estate plan than they actually need.  So an effective estate planning attorney is not merely a creator of a document, but instead, a person who diagnoses your situation and prescribes the right estate plan to fit your particular condition and goals.  This is an important personal service that only an estate planning attorney can provide rather than a mere software program, website or document preparation service.  Most importantly, an estate planning attorney can answer all of your questions so that you can have peace of mind that the choices you are making will truly bring about your desired result.