Recommendations for an Estate Planner NJ/NYC area

Look up the National Acad of Elder Law Attorneys website.

They list their membership by state.

Make sure whoever you hire devotes 100% of their practice to estate planning and has an LL.M. degree, in addition to a J.D. degree.

Don't use a "rent law" attorney. (Someone who does anything to pay his rent.)

Make sure to use a living trust as the heart of the plan to avoid probate & guardianship.

If your estate is taxable (subject to the estate tax) and your married, look to using an A-B trust.

Any more advice and I'll have to charge you!

Move to Florida and I'll help you out. I've got five locations throughout the state and ONLY practice estate planning.

Good luck.

 

I'm a New York atty (not estate). Max4HD gives some great advice... Respectfully, though, I don't see the point of the one piece of advice quoted above. This will limit you because LL.M.s are still not *that* common in all fields and I don't think it necessarily adds anything to the strength of someone's estate practice.

Oh and by the way, sorry I can't recommend any good individual for this, the firms I worked for had some good people I think though so if you want to go with a "big firm", let me know...

Good luck.

 

I can highly recommend Roger Levine, he's in East Brunswick. He's been a close family friend for many years and his firm specializes in estate planning. He has done all my estate planning, and my family's too. He's one of the few attorney's I have ever dealt with (which has been a fair share) that is as kind & considerate as he is knowledgeable and ethical. Anyway, that's enough of a plug.

His website is http://www.levinefurman.com/. You can tell him Jon Bednarsh referred you.