Specific Areas of Estate Planning

Maryland, District of Columbia, and Virginia Estate Planning Attorney

Protecting Your Assets

At Clark and Allen, PC, our D.C., Maryland, and Virginia estate-planning attorneys will evaluate your situation, review the alternatives, and structure your estate to protect your assets. We will create the necessary documents and will represent your interests in any dispute.

Proper estate planning requires a thorough understanding of a client and his or her beneficiaries, their personal styles, capabilities, needs, and financial objectives. We will use that knowledge to design an estate planning strategy to meet those goals.

Wills

Wills guide instruct the probate court in the distribution of your assets according to your wishes. If you do not have a will, when you die, your estate will be considered "intestate" and be distributed according to the laws of the state you live in, regardless of what your true intentions might have been.

Our firm can assist you in drafting your will along with any supporting documents you may need. We can ensure that your Will meets the applicable rules of construction in Virginia, Maryland, or Washington D.C.

Business assets

Since many of our clients own small businesses (or may be substantial shareholders of larger businesses), investment real estate, and stock options, counseling on estate planning may involve use of many different planning devices. Some of these vehicles include the use of entities to assist in management and transfer of ownership, which, as a side benefit, may result in the reduction in value of the taxable estate; buy-sell agreements in closely-held businesses to ease the transition to the successors; gifting programs to reduce estate tax; and recommendations on the disposition of retirement benefits to maximize their effectiveness.

Trusts

Our Virginia estate planning attorneys can help draft and implement all kinds of trusts designed to protect your assets, including living, or inter vivos trusts, family limited partnerships, special needs trusts, business affair trusts, charitable remainder trusts, trusts for a minor child, irrevocable trusts, generation skipping trusts, and life insurance trusts.

Living Wills and Health Care Power of Attorney

Our firm can also help you ensure your health care desires are carried out if you are ever rendered incapacitated, either through a living will or by designating somebody you trust as a health care power of attorney.

Powers of Attorney

Our firm can draft financial powers of attorney for you in the event that you become incapacitated or otherwise unable to manage your financial affairs. We can help you appoint someone to look after your financial affairs if you are unable to do so.

Designation of Life Insurance Beneficiaries

Life Insurance and retirement benefits are payable to a designated beneficiary. Your Will will not govern these benefits unless they are paid to your estate. Retirement benefits require special care as the rules governing these benefits are quite complex.

For questions or to speak an estate planning attorney, contact Clark and Allen, PC today.

Clark and Allen, PC

Leesburg Office:
Estate Planning Attorneys
Market Station
108-E South Street, S.E.
Leesburg, VA 20175
Phone (703) 443-1083
Fax: (703) 443-1081
E-Mail

Tysons Corner Office:
8280 Greensboro Drive
Suite 601
McLean, Virginia 22102
Phone: (703) 443-1083
Fax: (703) 443-1081
E-mail

From our law offices in Leesburg and Tysons Corner, Virginia, we provide legal services to clients in the Washington D.C. area and around the country. In Northern Virginia, we actively serve clients in the Dulles Technology Corridor, Arlington, Fairfax, and Loudoun Counties as well as Alexandria, Falls Church, McLean, Reston, Vienna, Herndon, Leesburg, and Sterling. We also serve people in Frederick, Prince William, Fauquier, and Clark counties in addition to Montgomery and Frederick counties in Maryland and the cities of Manassas, Manassas Park, Warrenton, Purcellville, Gaithersburg, Rockville, Germantown, Frederick, Bethesda, and Potomac.