I once read that Robert Lewis Stevenson gave his birthday to his friend, Annie. (You might expect this from the author of Treasure Island.) It was said that Annie was born on December 25th and constantly complained about this inconvenience.…

People own land. This concept is as old as dirt. Still, I sometimes daydream about how land was transferred in the days before government agencies regulated out all of the chaos and fun. I envision a scenario where a person…

I have heard people comment that they do not need to plan their estate because they do not have enough money. My response to them is, “If you have a car, you have an estate.” I say this good-naturedly and…

I think we can all agree that memory is an easily influenced contraption. Too often we rely on what we know about ourselves and our current surroundings in concluding what our past decisions may have been. Or, over time, the…

Everyone has an estate and every estate has value, but this value is not often monetary. It is all too easy to dismiss estate planning as something that is not needed until we have amassed a certain amount of wealth.…

On several occasions when I have met with unmarried couples, they have interrupted the initial pleasantries, taken a deep breath, looked at me intently and asked: “Couldn’t we skip all this planning and just get married?” Immediately, visions of horse-drawn…