Wills, Trusts & Estates

About Our Practice

The firm renders professional services in the areas of estate and trust planning and administration. Its attorneys handle estate planning and estate administration to assist our clients in distributing their assets, while minimizing the payment of estate and other taxes. Our services in this area include:
- Counseling clients to assure the orderly and efficient transfer of property to intended beneficiaries at death with a minimum of estate, gift, generation-skipping and income tax costs.
- Providing full legal services to Virginia and District of Columbia personal representatives of decedents' estates including handling all proceedings in the probate court.
- Advising the personal representative and trustee on federal and state tax matters so that the estate may be handled at the lowest possible total cost.
- Establishing both voluntary and involuntary guardianships for incapacitated persons.
- Offering legal advice to beneficiaries of estates and trusts.

In preparing an estate plan, our attorneys tailor the plan for the individual by considering all the sophisticated estate planning devices available, including: Wills, Revocable and irrevocable trusts, Life insurance trusts, "Crummey" trusts, 2503(c) trusts for minors, Unified credit shelter trusts, Gifts, Qualified terminable interest (QTIP) trusts, Estate freezes, Family Limited Partnerships, Prenuptial and Postnuptial agreements, Charitable remainder trusts, Charitable lead or income trusts, Personal residence trusts, Qualified personal residence trusts, Grantor retained annuity trusts, Grantor retained unitrusts and Qualified domestic trusts. Our firm also has a trust and estates litigation practice with experience in will contests, fiduciary surcharge litigation, and contested guardianship matters. The attorneys in this practice group appear before the probate and other courts and have been involved with numerous trusts and estates litigation matters in Virginia and D.C.

Attorneys

G. Donald Markle
Jennifer L. Barnes
John C. Bazaz