Estate Planning · Texas · New York · D.C.

For the people you love.

Wills, trusts, powers of attorney, and health care directives for families and small business owners in Houston and across Texas, New York, and Washington, D.C. We put your wishes into writing in plain language, and we move at the pace that fits your life.

A plan that reflects your family.

Estate planning isn't reserved for the wealthy or the elderly. It's for the parent choosing a guardian for the first time, the couple merging two lives in Houston or Brooklyn, the small business owner in D.C. trying to picture what happens next. Wherever you are in life, the plan should sound like you and read like you.

Because we're licensed in Texas, New York, and the District of Columbia, every document is drafted to the law of the place it actually has to work in, and tailored to your specific circumstances. Our meetings are unhurried. We ask questions, translate the legal vocabulary into ordinary English, and walk through the real-life "what ifs" you've probably been carrying around in your head. By the end, you have a plan you can explain to your spouse and a family that's looked after.

Three generations of hands resting together

Services

Comprehensive Estate Planning

Wills

A will is the written instruction your loved ones and the probate court will follow after you're gone. It spells out who inherits, in what shares, and who steps in to raise your minor children. To be valid, it has to be signed while you're 18 or older and of sound mind, and witnessed under your state's rules. In Texas, New York, and D.C., a typed will must be signed and attested before two witnesses. After your death, the will is filed with the local probate court (a Texas county probate court, a New York Surrogate's Court, or the D.C. Superior Court Probate Division) so your executor can pay debts and pass on what's left. Without a valid will, your state's intestacy statute makes those choices for you, and the result may not reflect what you would have chosen.

Trusts

Think of a trust as a private container for your wealth. You transfer assets into it, appoint a trustee to manage them, and spell out who benefits and under what conditions. A revocable living trust allows you to retain complete control over your assets during your lifetime, and you can change anything at any time. A funded trust, one that has actually been retitled rather than signed and filed away, spares your family the Texas, New York, or D.C. probate process (assuming no significant assets are left outside the trust and no disputes arise over the trust itself) and keeps your financial life off the public record.

Powers of Attorney

A power of attorney allows you to proactively designate a trusted person to manage your finances if you become incapacitated. A durable POA keeps working even after incapacity, so the person you trust can pay the mortgage, file your taxes, or close on a sale without your family first having to ask a judge for guardianship. Each of our jurisdictions has its own required form: the Texas Statutory Durable Power of Attorney and the New York Statutory Short Form Power of Attorney (overhauled in 2021), while D.C. sets statutory execution requirements rather than a single mandated form. Banks, brokerages, and title companies regularly reject anything that doesn't match, so we draft to the version the institutions in your life will actually honor.

Health Care Directives

Medical directives require two distinct steps: naming someone to speak for you and writing down your specific care rules. The paperwork depends entirely on your home base. In Texas, you need a Medical Power of Attorney alongside a Directive to Physicians. If you live in New York, you will sign a Health Care Proxy and a Living Will. D.C. residents use a Health-Care Durable Power of Attorney. Regardless of the location, these documents remain completely silent until a medical professional confirms you cannot communicate.

Estate Planning Essentials

What every Texas, New York, and D.C. family should understand

Estate planning carries more jargon than it needs to, and the rules don't follow you across a state line. What holds up in Texas can read differently the minute you set foot in New York, D.C., or anywhere else. The pages below are a straightforward walk through the concepts that tend to matter most when there's a family or a business at stake in any of the three places we practice.

What is an "estate," really?

Most people have one without realizing it. Your estate is everything you own and control on the day you're gone: the house, the vehicles, the retirement and bank accounts, life insurance, your stake in a family business, the belongings inside your home, and the online accounts that have become part of daily life. Size has little to do with it. What matters is that none of it leaves with you. Absent written instructions, Texas, New York, or D.C. intestacy law decides for you, and the result rarely resembles what a parent, a spouse, or an owner would have chosen.

What estate planning actually does

Estate planning is the work of putting your decisions in writing, clearly enough that a judge and a grieving family can both follow them: who inherits, when they inherit, and who's in charge of carrying it out. A thorough plan reaches further than that, naming guardians for young children, providing for a pet, building protections around a loved one with special needs, and leaving something behind for the causes you've cared about. Done well, it lowers taxes and court costs and spares your family a heavier load than the one they're already carrying.

Probate in Texas, New York, and D.C.

Probate is the court-supervised wind-down of your affairs: inventorying assets, paying legitimate debts, and delivering what's left to the people entitled to it. Texas handles this through county probate or constitutional courts, and when a will is drafted to permit it, families can rely on the comparatively quick "independent administration." New York runs everything through a county Surrogate's Court, which moves slower and demands more formality at every step. In D.C., the Superior Court Probate Division takes the case. When someone dies without a will (what the statute calls "intestate"), each jurisdiction defaults to a rigid formula that routinely overlooks blended families, business partners, and the relationships that truly defined a person's life.

For small business owners: continuity matters

For owners across Houston and the rest of Texas, New York, and Washington, D.C., we build trust-centered succession plans so the doors stay open the day you're no longer at the helm. Buy-sell agreements, ownership transfers, and the right trust structures keep employees on payroll, keep clients served, and keep the income flowing to the family you built it all for. The business keeps steadily carrying the people who depend on it.

How an estate planning attorney helps across Texas, New York, and D.C.

Estate law is stubbornly local. A Houston family with a Texas homestead, a Brooklyn brownstone, or a Capitol Hill rowhouse is governed by three different probate codes and three different power-of-attorney statutes, and a document that's airtight in one of them can turn out to be unenforceable in another. Online templates can produce paperwork; what they can't tell you is whether the paperwork fits your family, your assets, and the law of the state where it will actually be tested. Because we're licensed in Texas, New York, and the District of Columbia, we sit down with you, learn what you're trying to protect, and recommend the right combination of wills, trusts, powers of attorney, and health care directives. We also talk through the harder "what ifs," including incapacity, remarriage, a child with special needs, a closely-held business, and minor children inheriting at the wrong age. What you walk away with is a plan you understand, a plan that holds up everywhere you have ties, and a plan your family can follow on the day they need it most.

How to Avoid Probate

Will your family inherit your legacy — or up to a year in probate court?

For most families, and for almost every small business owner, the gap between a will-based plan and a trust-based plan is the gap between privacy and a public record, between a few weeks and a few years, and between a quiet transition and a fight on the courthouse steps.

Why a trust often beats a will alone

A will is better than nothing, but a will does not avoid probate. Even a beautifully drafted will still has to be filed with a Texas county probate court, a New York Surrogate's Court, or the D.C. Superior Court Probate Division. Your family may wait months (in places like New York County or Harris County, Texas, often more than a year) and pay court costs, executor commissions, and attorneys' fees before they can touch a dime of what you left. And probate is public: anyone can walk into the courthouse and read what you owned, what you owed, and who got it.

A properly drafted and funded revocable living trust is the most reliable way around probate in all three jurisdictions. You retitle the house, the accounts, and the larger assets into the trust during your lifetime; you keep full control as your own trustee; and when the time comes, the successor trustee you've named distributes what's there privately, quickly, and without a judge looking over their shoulder. Beyond keeping you out of probate, a well-built trust also:

Keeps your finances and your beneficiaries off the public docket.
Plans for incapacity, so the person you've chosen can step in if you're no longer able to manage your own affairs.
Protects minor children, beneficiaries with special needs, and heirs who aren't yet ready to manage a large inheritance.
Coordinates property held in more than one state (common when clients own a Texas homestead, a New York co-op, and a D.C. condo) and avoids opening a separate ancillary probate in each.
Pairs with a "pour-over" will so anything you forget to retitle still has a home.

Other tools have their place too, including beneficiary designations on retirement accounts and life insurance, Texas transfer-on-death deeds, and joint ownership, but they work best when they're stitched into one coordinated plan instead of layered on as a patchwork.

For most families across Texas, New York, and D.C., a trust-centered plan offers a measure of privacy, speed, and control that a will, on its own, simply isn't built to provide.

Talk to us about a trust-based plan

Our Process

From first call to signed plan

Discovery Call

We learn about your family, assets, and goals — no obligation.

Plan Design

We recommend the documents and structures that fit your situation.

Drafting & Review

We draft a complete plan and walk you through every provision.

Signing

We walk you through every document, formally execute your plan with the required witnesses and notarization, and make sure each piece is valid and ready to take effect.

Who we serve

Young families naming guardians for minor children

Couples consolidating assets and planning together

Business owners building succession and continuity plans

Blended families with unique distribution needs

Individuals with special-needs beneficiaries

Homeowners making sure the house passes to the right people, without a court fight

Care for your family — today.

A relaxed, confidential conversation. No pressure, no jargon — just clarity about what would serve your family best.

Schedule a Consultation