Wills and Trusts

When I sit down with clients to begin the process of putting together an estate plan, I look at it as the beginning of a conversation. Of course, I ask a lot of questions — that’s my job but typically what unfolds is a life story where they came from, how they found their careers and life partners, and the children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, and others in their lives whom they want to take care of. My own personal history of wildly contrasting backgrounds (a Cuban mother and Irish Catholic father, both sent to Washington DC boarding schools as young teenagers, who hastily married in Havana as Castro was taking over the island) instilled in me a great curiosity about the influences that gather around a person to make them who they are.

For me, where a person is born, how they grow up, birth order, the number or absence of siblings, family tragedies and triumphs, estrangements and addictions, and the historical era in which a person comes of age are all hugely important in the formation of a person and their ideas about the world. It is this interest in individuals backgrounds and perspectives that prompted me to focus my law practice on estate, special needs and medicaid planning. But it is also this same curiosity and drive to connect the dots that allows me to acquire a broad (and often colorful) view of who a person is and what is important to them. I believe that this knowledge and insight produces estate planning documents that truly reflect the person’s values and will stand the test of time.