Team of business experts working on financial strategies

Help Families – Bottom line, we work with families to maximize the wealth within the family by minimizing taxes and risk to the assets, and helping to ensure that we meet your family’s values and goals. We do this by providing advice, strategic counsel, documentation, and advocating for your rights.

Strategize – Often, the first call is from someone who “doesn’t know what to do” with their estate plan, special needs child, aging parent, death of a family member, or tax situation. Our Team works with you to develop a plan of action, so not only do you know what to do, but the specific steps to reach your goals.

Advice and Counsel – Education and empowerment are the cornerstones of our Mission. By educating you about the law and the practicalities of different courses of action, we empower you to make decisions and take steps to meet your goals.

Protect Wealth – You worked hard for your wealth. You may fear its loss through long-term care costs, financially immature beneficiaries, risk of a lawsuit, divorce, taxes. We design and help you carry out plans to keep as much as you can of what you have earned during your lifetime in the hands of the people you want to have access to those assets.

Draft Documents – Our Wealth Preservation attorneys prepare Wills, Trusts, Powers of Attorney, Living Wills, Contracts, Releases, Settlement agreements, Court pleadings, Research memos, Asset Protection Plans, and on and on. Our role as your lawyers includes documenting any plan that you’ve put into action and advocating for your position and rights with others in court.

Review Documents – Our legal team reviews documents prepared by others and advises you on the meaning of those documents, how they fit into your goals and plan strategies and suggest modifications and strategies to carry the documents out. We review contracts before you enter into them to ensure that your understanding of the document matches what the document actually says.

Bring Actions in Court – If you require a court to determine your rights, such as in a guardianship or estate litigation, we advocate for you in court as your representative to achieve your goals.

Defend Legal Actions – People get sued. In particular, people who act as fiduciaries (executors and trustees) may get sued by disappointed beneficiaries. We analyze the lawsuit and zealously advocate on your behalf while working towards any appropriate settlement.

Access Benefits – You may be entitled to benefits – such as Medicaid, Veterans Benefits, and Disability Benefits. We navigate often confusing rules and advocate for you with government agencies to get you the benefits that you are entitled to.

Prepare Tax Returns – Certain wealth transfers, such as gifts or inheritances, require specific tax returns to be filed. Our attorneys can prepare and file those for you.

Administer Estates – Administering someone’s Estate is a lengthy and detailed process. As part of your Team, we develop the action plan from the probate of the Will through the final distribution of the assets and work with you and the other Team members to move the Estate from open to close.

Administer Trusts – Trusts are separate legal entities and the Trustees have fiduciary responsibility to the trust's beneficiaries. With your Team, we advise you on how to maximize the benefits 7 of trusts and properly operate the trust, including tax filings, distribution requests, and trust modification and termination.

Advise Fiduciaries – If you are an Executor, Trustee, Power of Attorney, or Guardian, you have legal duties to the person and assets in your care. We educate you on the specifics of your job, advise you on risks, and assist you with required communications to beneficiaries, courts, and government agencies.

Retitle Assets – Whether to achieve asset protection goals or as part of administering an estate or trust, the ownership of assets may need to be transferred. We assist you with a change of owner, change of beneficiary, retitling real estate, and all the details necessary to work through your plan.

And so much more…… – While this website speaks of personal services we provide (estate planning, estate administration, guardianship, special needs planning, elder law, etc.) Crystal, Deirdre, and Joe are Principals of Porzio, a larger multi-discipline law firm. The benefit to you is that when there is an issue outside of these personal services – starting or managing a business, an employment agreement or severance, purchasing, selling or leasing real estate, protecting intellectual property you’ve developed, pre-nuptial agreements, a lawsuit, a tax audit, a personal injury, you need not leave your Team behind. Consider Crystal, Joe, and Deirdre as primary care providers, who tackle some but not all issues, and the other attorneys at Porzio as specialists in their areas of practice. When a specialist is needed we add them to your Team. Even Deirdre and Joe’s practices expand beyond the personal services listed here. Deirdre additionally represents closely held businesses and their owners, addresses tax audit and appeals, and data privacy and cyber security. Joe also engages in commercial litigation and charitable planning. This website is about how we can help you, not all about us. There is more to Porzio than personal services.