Our estate planning team at Shaheen & Gordon, P.A. is ready to help you prepare for the future through strategic estate planning. Our experience extends to all areas of estate planning law, including probate and wills. We are dedicated to helping clients protect their assets, avoid probate, and employ personalized estate planning tactics to preserve their estates.

Our areas of practice include living wills, postmortem planning, revocable trusts, irrevocable trusts, durable powers of attorney, asset protection, business succession, and estate tax savings.

Common Estate Planning Documents

• Asset protection – We can help you establish a system to ensure that your financial assets are passed to your loved ones.
• Family business succession – Family-owned businesses face unique challenges during probate. We can help you overcome these to preserve your business.
• Wills – Without a will, state law will distribute your assets. Make sure that your possessions are passed to your loved ones with a will.
• Living Will – Different from a Will, a Living Will provides instructions on the medical care you wish to receive in the event you are incapacitated. You can choose the type of end-of-life or life-prolonging medical care you want.
• Revocable Living Trust – You are able to appoint someone you trust to manage your property while you are alive or after your death. The assets in the trust can potentially avoid probate as well.
• Durable power of attorney – Power of attorney enables you to control who will manage your assets if an illness prohibits you from handling them in the future.

Why Estate Planning Is Important

Having a proper estate plan in place can offer many protections, not only for what you’ve accumulated during your lifetime, but also your loved ones .

Benefits of estate planning include:

• You can choose who cares for your young children rather than having the courts decide
• You can protect your assets from potential lawsuits
• You can choose your beneficiaries to minimize disputes between loved ones
• You can minimize estate taxes to maximize what you leave for your family
• You can choose who will handle your financial and medical affairs if you are unable to do so

Creating an estate plan puts you in control over your legacy and affairs, rather than leaving that up to the courts or family disputes.

How Can Shaheen & Gordon, P.A. Help Me?

Whether you want to create a will, establish durable power of attorney, or create a plan to protect your financial assets, our legal team at Shaheen & Gordon, P.A. is here to help. Our firm has served Maine clients for more than 60 years.

Our Attorneys offer clients skilled legal guidance for estate planning and probate with the highest level of ability and professionalism.