Estate and Trust Planning and Administration

Few decisions are as important as choosing the right lawyer to help preserve and protect your assets during your lifetime, and ensure that they are distributed according to your wishes. Kerr Russell has extensive experience in providing a comprehensive range of estate and trust planning and administrative legal services—with a difference.

Many of our lawyers are Certified Public Accountants as well as attorneys. With our advanced training, insight and experience, we are able to create effective estate plans that coordinate client objectives, streamline administration, and minimize inheritance taxes to align with business and personal goals.

Our services include estate and trust planning and administrative services for estates and trusts, closely held businesses and individuals. From preparing estate income tax returns, and simple Wills and Powers of Attorney, to advising regarding complex, multi-million dollar estates involving business valuations and other sophisticated tax-minimizing methodologies, our attorneys are extremely aware of and familiar with the latest legal developments in this area of the law. We have the skills and experience necessary to help you achieve your estate planning objectives.

A partial list of our estate planning services includes:

• Preparation of Wills, Revocable and Irrevocable Trusts and Grantor Retained Income Trusts (GRAT’s)
• Preparation of Durable Powers of Attorney, Medical Powers of Attorney and HIPAA Waivers
• Estate planning services, including estate and generation skipping tax analysis, charitable and family gifts, funding for education, Medicaid/nursing home planning, and noncitizen tax planning
• Assistance in trust administration
• Planning for the succession and disposition of ownership in closely held companies
• Probate court representation, including small, independent, supervised and ancillary estates, name changes, guardianships, conservatorships and adversarial proceedings
• Determination and preparation of returns for federal estate, gift and generation skipping taxes, and Michigan and Florida inheritance taxes
• Preparation of trust and estate income tax returns
• Preparation of decedents’ final income tax returns
• Prenuptial and postnuptial agreements
• Counseling individuals concerning primary state of residence or jurisdiction for tax purposes
• Coordination of large retirement plan accounts with estate planning documents