Estate Planning, Trusts and Estates

Our attentive estate planning attorneys offer comprehensive, individualized services. We prepare wills, revocable trusts and irrevocable trusts tailored to meet our clients’ specific needs and goals, with careful consideration of relevant family circumstances and assets requiring special concern. We additionally routinely handle complex estate tax, gift tax, generation-skipping transfer tax, and Iowa inheritance tax issues, offering creative strategies designed to meet our clients’ objectives on a tax-advantaged basis. Our offered estate planning techniques include basis planning, irrevocable life insurance trusts, estate freezing techniques, generation-skipping trusts, dynasty trusts, installment sales to trust, structured lifetime gifts, and charitable giving planning.

Following the death of a loved one, our caring estate and trust attorneys guide clients through the process of administering the estate or trust. We offer personal attention in assuring that all necessary legal matters are completed. We handle the publication of appropriate notices, probate filings, and tax returns and assist in the processing of account changes, distribution of retirement assets, and ensuring all assets are properly titled in the name of the new owners. In addition to handling post-death administrations, we represent executors, trustees, and trust beneficiaries in determining their legal rights and duties and protecting their interests. Finally, we offer comprehensive trust law services applicable during the term of a trust, including trust modification, trustee succession, the interpretation of trust language, securing court approval for trustee actions, and the resolution of legal or tax issues associated with the trust.

When disagreements arise during the term of an estate or trust, litigation may become necessary. We represent executors, trustees, and beneficiaries in all types of disputed trust and estate matters, including filing or defending will contests, disputes involving the management of assets, the propriety of distributions, or the removal of an executor or trustee. Our involvement in resolving these disputes may include representation at a contested court hearing, negotiations, mediation, arbitration, or litigation.