Estate planning for Montana professionals

What the plan includes

A Clearstone plan is built around a revocable living trust and includes everything needed to put it into effect.

• Revocable living trust, individual or joint
• Pour-over will, with guardian nominations where there are minor children
• Financial power of attorney, healthcare power of attorney and advance directive
• Provisions coordinating retirement accounts, life insurance and equity compensation with the trust
• Lifetime trusts for children and other beneficiaries where appropriate
• Funding: deeds, beneficiary designations and transfers completed with the firm
• A bound plan with a plain-language summary and instructions for the people you have named

Fee

Trust-based plans are prepared for a fixed fee, quoted in writing before engagement. The fee covers the plan, funding and signing. There is no hourly billing for estate planning.

Where a trust is not warranted, a will-based plan is prepared on the same terms. Irrevocable and specialized trusts are prepared as the situation requires.

Who this is for

Professionals and couples, physicians, dentists, executives, attorneys, engineers and others, whose wealth is concentrated in retirement accounts, a practice or equity compensation, with a family to provide for. It provides for incapacity as well as death: who manages your affairs, who makes medical decisions, and how income continues. The plan coordinates retirement accounts and life insurance with the trust so they pass as intended and without avoidable tax, and uses lifetime trusts to protect what passes to a spouse and children from creditors and divorce. Deferred compensation and equity are addressed where they are part of the picture.

The firm

Clearstone Law is a Montana corporate, commercial and private wealth firm based in Billings, serving clients across the state. Estate plans are prepared alongside the firm's business law and private client work.

Where a client's exposure or holdings warrant it, the firm prepares an integrated plan: entity structuring, exemption planning, insurance review and trust design together.