Estate Planning

The Steele Law Firm offers personalized estate planning services for clients who have assets they want to protect.  We work with clients with assets that range from moderate to significant.  We understand that everyone’s assets are important, and our Illinois estate planning lawyers will work closely with your financial advisors, accountants, and insurance representatives to create an all-encompassing plan for your assets and property.

During our consultations with you, we will listen closely so we can understand your family and your desires.  Every family is unique.  For example, some families have children from prior marriages whose interests need to be protected, or family businesses they wish to pass on to children.  When advising you, we will carefully consider the effect that estate planning decisions would have on separate and marital property.  In estate planning, it’s important to preserve separate property and inheritances should a divorce occur in the future.

When leaving assets to children, our estate planning lawyers will seek ways to protect those assets from bankruptcy, divorce, lawsuit judgments, and other unforeseen events.

We will also explore means of minimizing estate taxes through various estate planning tools such as family limited partnerships, irrevocable living trusts, charitable remainder trusts, and irrevocable life insurance trusts.

Many people go through a period of incapacity prior to death.  We will create documents such as living wills that will speak for you if you are unable to speak for yourself, and powers of attorneys that will give trusted family members the ability to make decisions for you.

We may be able to create your estate plan in such a way as to avoid the necessity of probate. Avoiding probate will avoid unnecessary costs and delays, and also allow your family to retain privacy over your family’s financial matters.

Top of Page / Home