Durrell Law Group, P.C.
Estate Planning Services in Anchorage
Durrell Law Group’s experienced attorneys offer Alaska families and business owners comprehensive estate planning services that assist in building, protecting and distributing their wealth – their way. Our services in this area fall into four main categories: estate planning, estate administration and probate process, trusts and trust administration, and tax and business planning.
If you are interested in working with us, we encourage you to view our letter of introduction for prospective estate planning clients.
Estate Planning
We work with our clients to plan for the future, offering guidance in the following areas:
Analyze and structure comprehensive estate plans that preserve and transfer a client’s wealth during the client’s lifetime and at death by minimizing the effect of the various transfer taxes (estate, gift and generation-skipping transfer taxes) applicable to individuals, families and businesses
Prepare estate planning documents, such as wills and trusts
Utilize a number of sophisticated estate planning techniques, including life insurance trusts, charitable trusts, gift planning, formation of private foundations, grantor retained annuity trusts, installment sales to grantor trusts, and qualified personal residence trusts
Project estate and gift tax liability, and recommend and implement strategies to minimize estate and gift taxes
Recommend and implement strategies to protect family wealth from creditor claims
Structure and implement annual gifting programs to transition wealth free of estate tax
Plan for the management of a client’s wealth and personal care in the event of disability through the use of revocable trusts, financial and medical powers of attorney, and medical directives (also known as living wills)
Negotiate and document prenuptial agreements, marital property agreements and divorce tax planning
Prepare and file gift tax returns (form 709) and estate tax returns (form 706)
Estate Administration and Probate Process
Following a death, we work with our clients’ families to:
Assist fiduciaries through the entire process of settling a deceased person’s estate
Represent fiduciaries and beneficiaries in probate actions
Prepare and counsel on use of disclaimers
Work with fiduciaries on valuation issues
Prepare and file estate tax returns (form 706)
Trusts and Trust Administration
Our team of attorneys is highly experienced with trusts and trust administration, and assists clients with the following:
Structure trusts to provide financial security to loved ones and to minimize taxes
Create trusts, including various revocable and irrevocable trusts, life insurance trusts, grantor trusts, annual exclusion trusts (commonly known as Crummey trusts), trusts for minors, generation-skipping transfer exempt trusts, grantor retained annuity trusts, and charitable split-interest trusts
Advise individual and corporate trustees regarding trust administration and the discharge of fiduciary powers, responsibilities and duties under applicable law
Advise beneficiaries regarding their rights relating to their trusts
Analyze and implement charitable planned giving techniques, including charitable remainder trusts
Assist successor trustees in administration of revocable trusts after a grantor’s death
Tax and Business Planning
Our estate planning services extend to tax and business planning, including:
Develop strategies to pass a family business or closely held business to the next generation or to key employees
Assist with harmonious transfer of control at the business owner’s death to the next generation, even if some members of the next generation will not be involved in the active management of the business
Plan techniques focusing on valuation issues resulting in potential significant tax savings for the business owner and the business owner’s family
Structure and document family limited partnerships and other business entities to discount asset values for transfer tax purposes
Prepare buy-sell agreements to restrict the transfer of business interests outside of a family or group of business associates, and to protect a business from the risks of an unanticipated death or disability
Estate Planning Helpful Resources
New and existing clients are encouraged to utilize our helpful estate planning resources.
Estate Planning Organizer
We have developed an estate planning organizer to assist our clients in organizing their personal and financial information prior to meeting with us. Gathering and organizing essential information is the first step in developing a thoughtful and comprehensive plan. Our organizer also asks a few questions that will get you thinking about the decisions you must make during the development of your estate plan. Note that you will need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to download and print these fillable* organizers.
* Please note that if you would like to be able to save your completed, or partially completed, organizer, you must first save the PDF to your computer by right-clicking the link and choosing “Save target as...”
Alaska Advance Health Care Directive
You have the right to give instructions about your own health care to the extent allowed by law. You also have the right to name someone else to make health care decisions for you to the extent allowed by law. The Alaska Advance Health Care Directive form lets you do either or both of these things. It also lets you express your wishes regarding the designation of your health care provider.
Estate Planning Contact Information Update Form
If you are an existing client, we may have assumed responsibility for your will and certain other original estate planning documents by storing them in our Fire King vaults. We provide this service as a courtesy to our estate planning clients. If your original estate planning documents are stored in our vault, we ask that you keep us informed of any changes to your contact information or of any other change that would affect our handling of your documents. Please use our contact information update form to inform our office of changes to your contact information and to provide updated direction on the handling of your original estate planning documents.
