Curtin Law Office concentrates its practice on estate planning and elder law. Within these broad categories, though, the firm offers our clients a broad array of services that encompasses estate planning, elder law, probate and trust administration, special needs planning and guardianships.
When engaging the firm for any of these services, our clients can be sure that they are receiving the full benefit of our focus on these particular areas and the combined years of experience of attorneys and staff. In all of these areas, our goal is to achieve the best result for you in the most efficient manner.
Estate Planning
Basic Estate Planning: After reviewing a client's goals, we work with that client to develop a plan that fits the particular situation. A simple plan might involve wills, financial and health care powers of attorney, and living wills. Many of our plans also involve revocable trusts, which for many people are a great way to combine their estate planning goals with the avoidance of probate.
Drafting Complex Trusts: Some clients' situations require more complex trust arrangements, such as trusts to facilitate charitable giving (charitable remainder trusts or charitable lead trusts), trusts to hold life insurance policies (irrevocable life insurance), or other irrevocable trusts to achieve a number of different goals from estate tax reduction to long-term care issues.
Trust Funding: No matter what type of trust we prepare for a client, we do not consider our work complete unless we have helped the client through the process of transferring assets to the new trust or trusts that we have created. Download related case study.
Tax Planning: Our estate planning frequently encompasses the issues surrounding estate taxes. In many cases, proper trust planning can eliminate or at least substantially reduce the likelihood of paying estate taxes.
Business Planning: As part of their estate planning, many of our clients use our services to help them plan for the succession of their businesses. We are able to offer services such as the preparation of LLC operating agreements or business buy-sell agreements, among others.
Marital Planning and other Special Family Situations: We have extensive experience in helping families with particular situations, such as providing for the children of a first marriage and a second spouse in a harmonious fashion. When the need arises, we are also able to prepare prenuptial agreements that are tailored to the client's wishes.
Gifting Strategies: Whether for reasons of estate tax reduction or in conjunction with long term care planning, we offer our clients advice on appropriate lifetime gifting, including the appropriate assets to gift and the mechanism by which to make those gifts.
Elder Law & Long-Term Care
Many of our clients are concerned about long term care planning for themselves as they age or for their aging parents. Many fear losing all their assets to a nursing home and need assistance with navigating through the complicated legal waters of Medicaid.
Our elder law practice involves helping individuals and families and includes the following services:
- Protecting the at-home spouse’s assets and income - Download related case study
- Representation at elderly services and going to court for increased benefits for at-home spouse
- Long term care planning
- Addressing concerns about the high cost of nursing home care
- Reviewing long term care insurance plans
- Medicaid planning
- Assistance with the completion of the Medicaid application
- Helping loved ones stay at home with home care assistance and caregiver help;
- Planning for disabled individuals
Probate & Trust Administration
Probate: Although many of our estate planning clients who create trusts will not require a probate procedure at their deaths, we are very experienced in offering probate administration services when the probate process is required. We work closely with families to assist them to understand the process.
Trust Administration: As living trusts become a more and more common part of the estate planning process, there are more and more clients concerned with their obligations once a loved one who had a living trust has died. We are able to offer advice on fiduciary obligations of trustees as well as offering assistance with trust distributions and winding up of trust affairs, where appropriate.
Tax Preparation: Along with our probate and trust administration services, we are able to assist clients with the preparation of federal and state estate tax returns, legacy and succession tax returns, and gift tax returns. We also assist clients in understanding their obligations with respect to fiduciary and other income tax obligations.
Special Needs Planning
When families have concerns about the particular needs of disabled individuals, we are able to tailor estate planning documents to meet those needs, while still preserving an individual’s eligibility for government benefits, if that is an issue.
This includes the preparation of special needs trusts.