We help clients develop and implement thoughtful, comprehensive estate plans.
Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick, LLP lawyers are experienced in all areas of personal succession, business succession, insurance, asset protection, and charitable giving planning. We provide a complete, cost-effective range of estate planning services to both individuals and families with “typical” assets and goals, as well as to business owners facing challenging transfer and tax succession issues. Our lawyers work with accountants, financial planners, and other advisors to develop and implement comprehensive strategies that fulfill our clients’ goals.
For our business estate planning clients with family businesses, proper planning—including advice on complicated tax laws—is essential to the continued financial stability of a business. Shumaker lawyers deploy numerous techniques to pass control and ownership of a business from one or more owners to the next generation of owners. In planning personal and business estates, we regularly help our clients structure life insurance ownership to meet their needs.
Clients also turn to us for help with asset protection planning, including forming family limited partnerships and limited liability companies to protect their assets from spurious lifetime claims and liabilities and transfer those assets to a younger generation.
Several Estate Planning team members focus on charitable estate planning—from outright gifts to the many charitable planned gifts and deferred giving options now available under current tax laws—which enables clients to enjoy personal and tax benefits by making meaningful lifetime or testamentary gifts to selected charities. Our experience in this area has led us to serve on many local charitable and foundation boards and to represent a number of local charities.
Our clients frequently face complicated real estate, tax, corporate, and pension planning issues that have an impact on their estate plans. We draw on the knowledge and experience of colleagues in other departments to ensure that each client’s estate plan fully addresses their individual needs and wishes, no matter how complex.
Our group’s services also include conducting private placement adoptions, both local and interstate, and finalizing agency adoptions. We represent birth parents and adoptive parents and assist in the surrender or termination of parental rights, filing of the adoption petition, and finalization of the adoption. We help clients qualify for international placement adoptions and obtain U.S. recognition of international adoptions completed in foreign jurisdictions.
We also advise on and handle guardianships for our clients, including filing for and setting up the initial guardianship and complying with the annual reporting requirements of the court.
Our Clients
- Business owners
- Physicians, lawyers, and other professionals
- Entrepreneurs and corporate executives
- Private nonprofit foundations formed for estate planning and charitable giving
- Retirees
Our Services
- Estate planning
- Tax planning
- Business succession planning
- Asset protection planning through family limited partnerships, limited liability companies, and other vehicles
- Charitable giving planning, including advice on achieving tax efficiencies and savings while fulfilling clients’ charitable intentions
- Insurance planning and structuring of life insurance coverage
- Representation of birth parents and adoptive parents in private placement adoptions including local, interstate, and international proceedings, as well as in finalizing agency adoptions
- Advice on guardianships
- Presentation of estate planning seminars