Scottsdale and Mesa, AZ · attorneys at law
The documents that decide who acts for you.
Estate planning, trust and estate litigation, guardianships, business and bankruptcy. Flat-quoted plans, and a straight answer about what you actually need.
6
practice areas under one roof
2
offices, Scottsdale and Mesa
Flat
fees quoted per plan, not per hour
Practice areas
Six areas, and they overlap on purpose.
The same family that needs a trust is often the family that later needs a guardianship, or the business owner whose succession plan is the estate plan. Having all of it in one firm is the point.
Estate planning
Wills, revocable trusts, powers of attorney and healthcare directives. The documents that decide who acts for you while you are alive, not only after.
Trust and estate litigation
Contested wills, breach of fiduciary duty, and the disputes that arrive when a family disagrees about what a document meant.
Guardianships and conservatorships
Court authority to make decisions for a person who can no longer make them, and the annual accounting that comes with it.
Business law
Formation, operating agreements, purchase and sale, and the succession planning most owners postpone until it is urgent.
Bankruptcy
Chapter 7 and Chapter 13, including the question people actually want answered first: what you get to keep.
Real estate and transactions
Purchase, sale and transfer work, including transfers into and out of trusts.
What you actually need
So here is the table before the meeting.
Most people arrive knowing they should "do a will" and not much more. This is the short version of the conversation, published rather than charged for.
You own a home in Arizona
Revocable trust
Keeps the house out of probate. Arizona probate on real property is slow and public.
You have children under 18
Will with guardianship nomination
It is the only place you get to say who raises them. Without it a court decides.
Somebody must act if you cannot
Financial power of attorney
Without one, a family member has to petition for conservatorship, which costs more than the document would have.
Medical decisions, if you are unable
Healthcare directive
Names the person and records the instruction, so the hospital is not asking a family to guess.
You own a business
Succession plan
Decides what happens to the entity on death or incapacity, before a partner or a spouse has to litigate it.
You have none of the above
Arizona intestacy
The statute distributes your estate. It does not know about the stepchild, the estranged sibling or the promise you made.
General information about Arizona law, not advice about your situation.
Bring what you have. The first meeting sorts out what you need.
Existing documents, out-of-state plans, a business agreement, or nothing at all. The plan is quoted flat afterwards, so there is no meter running while you decide.
15333 N. Pima Road, Suite 133, Scottsdale AZ · Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm
Before you call
The questions people ask first.
Do I need a trust, or is a will enough?
It depends mostly on whether you own real property. A will still goes through probate; a properly funded revocable trust generally does not. For an Arizona homeowner, that difference is usually months and several thousand dollars.
What does an estate plan cost?
It is quoted flat, per plan, after the first meeting, so you know the number before anything is drafted. What it should never be is an hourly meter running while a family decides who the trustee is.
I already have documents from another state.
Bring them. They are often valid and occasionally not, and Arizona community property rules change what they do. A review is quicker and cheaper than starting again.
What is a guardianship, in plain terms?
Court authority to make personal decisions for an adult who can no longer make them. A conservatorship is the same idea for their money. Both are public, both require annual reporting, and both are usually avoidable with documents signed while there was still capacity.
Do you handle the dispute if a family falls out?
Yes. Trust and estate litigation is a practice group here, which also means the drafting is done by people who have seen which clauses get fought over.
This page is general information, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.