Frequently Asked Questions

Estate planning is the legal plan you have for your care and your family’s care if you’re incapacitated; as well as the legal plan you have for your family’s care and the distribution of your assets when you die. You need an estate plan if you don’t like the state’s plan for you if you are incapacitated or die without a plan in place. The best way to understand what that plan is for you is to meet with an experienced Estate Planning Lawyer who can show you what things look like for you and your family if you are incapacitated or die.

If you die without a will in Oregon, there are statutes that lay out what happens to your assets. Generally, Oregon law lays things out how they think you would want them: if you’re married, your spouse gets your stuff, and if you’re not married but have kids, your kids get your stuff. This can be complicated by divorce, remarriage, blended family situations, joint property ownership, age of your kids, beneficiary designations on certain accounts, and a range of other issues. If a probate needs to happen, it can be more complicated without a will to tell the court who should be in charge and who should get what. In short, don’t die without a will prepared by an experienced Estate Planning Lawyer in Oregon.

We won’t know this until we meet with you, go over your family and financial situation, and discuss your goals and concerns about estate planning. You don’t have to have this decided before meeting with us. This is why we are here, to counsel you through the decisionmaking. Generally, the difference between a Will-based plan and a Trust-based plan is that a Will-based plan is likely to mean there will be a court process at some point (conservatorship if you’re incapacitated, probate after your death); and a Trust-based plan is designed to avoid those court processes, leaving the responsibility for a Successor Trustee to handle with the help of a lawyer. This decision is highly individual, but generally depends on a few things: 1) the client’s general feeling about wanting to avoid court processes or not; 2) time-delay issues, which can matter if you have dependents who rely on your income and assets; 3) privacy issues, if clients don’t want a conservatorship or probate that is a matter of public record; 4) whether the client is able to spend more money setting up a Trust-based plan; 5) whether the client is able to take the time to set up a Trust-based plan; and 6) whether the client can work with the attorney to keep the plan updated as life and assets change.

Sorry, but 'simple' estates are as mythical as unicorns. Everyone’s got a unique family, a unique set of assets, and their own quirks, concerns, and preferences, so estate planning isn’t a one-size-fits-all deal. We start our process by gathering the details we need from you and showing you what your estate looks like for your family if you die or are incapacitated. And by the way, a will only kicks in after you’re dead. If you’re incapacitated—which is the experience of most people at some point before death—your family could be left having to open a conservatorship for you, a court case that lasts until you die or regain capacity. That’s why our plans are comprehensive, tailored to your specific situation. You get to decide what type of plan you need, and we’ll make sure it covers death and incapacity to the extent the law allows. You can read more about the estate planning process and fee range here.

You can do whatever you want; it’s a free country! But here’s the deal: 70% of estate plans fail when they’re needed most (even ones prepared by lawyers, but that’s another story). The ones that actually work do so because of an ongoing relationship between the client and the lawyer. It’s about counsel from your lawyer, not about relying on a stack of documents you don’t fully understand. That’s why we offer flat-fees and membership plans that cover all your planning needs, with reviews and ongoing communication included in your fees.

Sure, saving a few bucks today might feel good, but how will you ever know that it’s going to work when your family needs it most? Who will be held accountable if it doesn’t the work the way you intended? Not the online company, because you signed a contract that says they didn’t provide you with legal advice and you can’t sue them. Don’t leave your family with a mess just to save a few dollars. Schedule your Estate Planning Session with Candice.

Candice could review it for you at her hourly rate, but there is a 99.99999% chance that she will find some things seriously lacking in your estate plan and you’ll end up paying to prepare a new plan anyway. So then you’d end up paying something like double what you would have paid to just have Candice (or another experienced estate planning lawyer) prepare a proper plan for you from the get-go. We are happy to get paid for all that work, but you might want to rethink it. Here is more information about our estate planning services.

If you’re looking for a plan that’s going to work when you and your loved ones need it, you're in the right place. Our plans cover death and incapacity. Our fees cover the plan we create together, all communication about estate planning, and followup reviews every three years. This means you go home with your Estate Planning Portfolio knowing you can call, text, or email your lawyer with any questions you have about your planning, knowing you won’t get a bill in the mail for it. It also means you can relax, knowing not only that you have a plan in place, but that your lawyer’s office is going to reach out to you every three years to make sure your plan is still up to date, so you know it will work when your family needs it most. What you’re really paying for with your investment is Candice's nearly two decades of experience—think of it as an investment in real peace of mind, not just a fee for some documents that give you a false peace of mind. Expect to invest somewhere between $2500 to $6000 depending on whether you’re doing single or joint planning and whether you’re creating a Will-based or Trust-based plan. If you’re curious about what your family might face without a plan in place, book an Estate Planning Session with Candice. Trust us, your family will thank you.

Probate is a court process that is required by Oregon law after someone dies if there are assets in the decedent’s name that haven’t passed by beneficiary deisgnation. The probate will be needed to get those assets transferred to the heirs or beneficiaries of the estate. Estate planning can help your family avoid probate if we determine that is a goal worth achieving. Some people find in our meetings that they are fine with probate, or that the value of their assets, the types of assets they own, or how the assets are owned makes a probate unlikely to be needed. If you end up wanting to avoid probate, there are various ways of doing it. The cleanest way is through using a Trust-based estate plan. While a Will tells a probate court how to distribute your estate, a Trust tells a Successor Trustee how to distribute your estate. When you set up a Trust, you transfer most of your assets to be owned by your Trust, designate some assets to be transferred to the Trust or other beneficiaries upon your death via beneficiary designations, name yourself the Trustee of your Trust until your incapacity or death, and appoint a Successor Trustee to step in when you can no longer serve. Because your Trust owns most of your assets, and others are distributed via beneficiary designation, there aren’t any assets that are subject to a probate. We can discuss probate and what it means for you and your family at your Estate Planning meeting.