Trusts & Estates

Wills, revocable trusts, and related arrangements governing the management and distribution of property. These documents identify beneficiaries, personal representatives and trustees, address the management of property during incapacity, and include guardian nominations where there are minor children.

Powers of attorney, healthcare directives, beneficiary designations, and the coordination of assets passing outside a will. Review includes retirement accounts, life insurance and jointly held assets, with attention to who can act and how property passes under existing ownership terms. Digital assets, including cryptocurrency and exchange accounts, are inventoried and provided for, with access and custody instructions a fiduciary can carry out.

Asset titling, trust funding, and ownership transfers that align property with the estate plan. Work includes reviewing titles and coordinating transfers to a trust, with attention to business agreements and restrictions affecting how an interest can be transferred. Work includes ranch and agricultural land, mineral interests, water rights and conservation easements held or placed in trust.

Succession of privately held business interests, ownership agreements, lifetime gifts, and family wealth transfers. Planning considers buy-sell provisions, management authority and transfer restrictions alongside family ownership. Planning addresses federal estate and gift tax exposure, basis, and the income-tax treatment of trusts.

For clients whose exposure or holdings warrant it, the firm prepares an integrated plan rather than a set of documents. It combines exemption planning for the homestead, retirement accounts and insurance; entity structuring for real estate, practice and investment assets; coordination with the client's insurance coverage; lifetime trusts that protect what passes to a spouse and children; and irrevocable or out-of-state trust structures where they fit, with their limits stated. Planning is sequenced to be defensible under Montana's voidable transactions law and reviewed as circumstances change.

Representation of personal representatives and trustees in probate, estate settlement, and trust administration. Advice addresses fiduciary authority, required notices, asset collection, accounting and distributions, including the responsibilities of those carrying out the estate or trust.