Make your financial life support the legacy you intend.
Estate planning is more than a will. It is your accounts, your beneficiaries, your documents, your taxes, insurance, the business, and what you want to give. I coordinate all of it, and your documents are produced through Vanilla, a guided platform included in the work, with an attorney available for complex situations and specific questions.
A plan that speaks for you, not a court that speaks over you.
Without a plan, the state's default rules pick your heirs and your children's guardian. Then the court process, called probate, plays out in public, on the court's timeline and at its cost.
A coordinated plan, documented and kept current with your accounts, directs your assets where you intend and already knows what to do when your life changes.
A complete plan, coordinated in one place.
From wills and trusts to healthcare directives, beneficiary designations, and the pieces most plans miss. The documents are produced through Vanilla, the guided platform in your client portal, and coordinated with everything else in your plan.
Last Will & Testament
Decide how your assets are shared and who raises your children, rather than leaving it to the state's default rules.
Trust Planning
Understand where a trust would help, and what it asks of you. Set up and funded properly, it can keep assets out of the court process.
Powers of Attorney
Decide who handles healthcare and financial decisions if you cannot, and make sure they know what that involves.
Healthcare Directives
Make your medical wishes known, and make sure the people you choose have the access they need to act on them.
Beneficiary Designations
Check that every account names the people you intend, and that those forms agree with your will and trusts, because they usually control who receives the asset.
Guardianship Planning
Think through who raises your children, and what guidance they would need, then put the decision into your documents.
Planning today is how you protect the people you love tomorrow.
The foundation of your plan.
A will directs how your assets are distributed, names guardians for your children, and appoints an executor to carry out your instructions. Without one, the state's default rules decide for you, and they may not match your wishes.
Your will evolves with your life. A marriage, a divorce, or a new child can each be reflected with an update, so your plan always speaks for you.
- Distribution of your assets, in your words
- Guardians named for minor children
- An executor to carry out your wishes
More than distribution. A lasting legacy.
A trust lets a trustee manage your assets according to your specific wishes. Whether you want to protect wealth, avoid probate, or preserve privacy, a trust gives you control and peace of mind.
Revocable trusts, the kind you can change, offer flexibility, while irrevocable trusts, the kind you lock in, can carry different tax and protection treatment. I tailor the setup to your goals, no matter the size of your estate.
- Revocable and irrevocable structures
- Living trusts, and ones created in your will
- Charitable and special needs planning
Your voice, even when you cannot speak.
Powers of attorney let you appoint trusted people to act on your behalf if you cannot act yourself. A medical power of attorney covers healthcare choices, often alongside a living will. A financial power of attorney covers bills, investments, and business affairs.
I help you think through who should serve and what authority they need, then the documents are prepared so the right people can step in without delay.
- Agents you choose, not a court
- Stays in effect even if you become unable to act
- Authority and limits you define
Plan for your health, not just your wealth.
Advance directives make sure your medical preferences are honored when you cannot speak for yourself. A healthcare power of attorney names who decides, and a living will spells out your wishes for treatments like life support.
A HIPAA release completes the picture, letting doctors share your records with the people you choose, so your family can act without delay. You control what is shared, with whom, and why.
- Medical decisions in trusted hands
- Your end-of-life wishes in writing
- Records access when it counts
The right assets to the right people.
Beneficiary designations route specific assets, like retirement accounts and life insurance, straight to the people you name. They bypass probate, making transfers faster and simpler for your loved ones.
They also need to stay coordinated with your will and trusts. I review your designations, so a name added years ago does not quietly override the plan you have today.
- Assets that pass outside probate
- Coordinated with your will and trusts
- Reviewed when life changes
Decide who raises your children.
Naming a guardian is one of the most personal decisions in estate planning. It makes sure that if the unthinkable happens, your children are cared for by someone you trust, with the stability your family deserves.
I encourage open conversations with potential guardians about values and parenting, then the decision goes into your documents. Guardianship becomes binding only after court approval, so clear guidance removes the ambiguity.
- Your choice, not a stranger's
- Guidance that streamlines the court process
- Revisited as your family grows
Know what a plan protects you from.
Without a plan, three things can quietly cost your family. The court process, probate, is slow, public, and expensive. The state's default rules decide your heirs and your children's guardian. And depending on the size of your estate and where you live, estate or inheritance taxes can take a meaningful share.
For business owners and serious accumulators, the stakes climb with the balance sheet. I coordinate how your accounts and property are owned alongside the documents themselves, so assets pass the way you intend, and revisit the plan as the law and your wealth change.
- Probate avoided where possible
- Ownership of accounts and property aligned with your plan
- Tax exposure reviewed as rules change
The pieces most plans leave out.
Your life runs through dozens of online accounts, and without access your family can be locked out of everything from photos to financial logins. I help you inventory your digital assets and, when it fits, name a digital executor.
I also help you document your final wishes, from burial or cremation to the details of the service. Putting these in writing spares your family from guessing during the hardest moments.
- A clear inventory of digital accounts
- A digital executor where it helps
- Final wishes documented in advance
The parts that decide whether a plan can actually be carried out.
Documents say where things should go. These decide whether they can get there without a forced sale or a scramble for cash.
- Cash for final expenses, debts, taxes, and administration
- Whether assets can transfer without forcing a sale
- Life insurance, sized to the need rather than a round number
- Potential federal and state estate or inheritance tax exposure
- Lifetime gifting, and what it costs you to give now
- Charitable bequests, donor-advised funds, and charitable trusts
- Concentrated or illiquid holdings, including real estate
- Business succession, buy-sell agreements, and key-person cover
- How retirement accounts distribute to the people who inherit them
- Which professionals need to be in the room, and when
A coordinated roadmap, not a set of documents.
The documents are produced through Vanilla. What you also get is everything around them, organized so the two agree.
- A summary of your current estate structure
- An inventory of documents, accounts, beneficiaries, and how things are owned
- A list of what is missing, outdated, or contradicting something else
- A plain explanation of how each major asset is expected to transfer
- An assessment of whether there is cash where it will be needed
- The questions worth raising with an attorney, where one is needed
- One action list across you, me, and where needed your attorney, accountant, and insurance professional
- A place for the documents and the contacts, so your family can find them
- A checklist of what to do, in priority order
- When to review it again
Before we start.
Do I need an estate plan if I do not consider myself wealthy?
Estate planning is mostly about people, not size. Who raises your children, who decides if you cannot, who receives what, and how easily your family can act. Those questions apply at any level of wealth.
Is a will enough?
Sometimes, often not. A will does not cover incapacity, and it does not control accounts that pass by beneficiary form or by how they are owned. Whether a will alone is enough for you depends on what you own and how it is titled, and that is part of what the review works out.
Why do beneficiary designations matter so much?
Because they usually decide who receives the account, whatever the will says. A form completed before a marriage, a divorce, or a child can quietly override the plan you thought you had. That is why they are reviewed alongside the documents, not after.
How often should an estate plan be updated?
Every few years, and sooner after a marriage, a divorce, a birth, a death, a move to another state, a business change, or a meaningful change in what you own. Laws change too, which is its own reason to revisit.
Who actually produces the documents?
Your documents are produced through Vanilla, a guided, self-service platform you work through as part of the engagement, with an attorney available for complex situations or specific legal questions. My part is the financial side: what you own, how it is held, who is named on it, whether there is cash where it will be needed, and whether all of it matches your intentions, then keeping the pieces coordinated as life changes.
Modern Wealth does not practice law or provide legal or tax advice. Documents are produced through Vanilla, a guided platform, with an attorney available for complex situations and specific legal questions. Nothing here promises that probate will be avoided or that any tax will be reduced. Estate and tax rules differ by state and change over time, so legal and tax questions should be reviewed with qualified attorneys and tax professionals.
Let's chat.
Bring your assets, beneficiaries, documents, and financial strategy together in one coordinated roadmap. A complimentary 30 minute conversation, relaxed and with nothing to prepare. I am here to listen, not to sell.
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