Estate Planning provides a plan for the management of your assets both during your lifetime and the management and distribution of your assets following your death. In many cases there are considerable financial and legal benefits to the establishment of an Estate Plan. Estate Planning primarily entails the creating of several legal documents that create a Trust, designate the use of your assets, designate trustees, and identify beneficiaries. The following introduce basic Estate Planning documents.

A Trust is a separate legal entity that holds property or assets of some kind for the benefit of a specific person, group of people or organization known as the beneficiary (beneficiaries). The person creating a trust is called the grantor, donor or settlor. When a trust is established, an individual or corporate entity is designated to oversee or manage the assets in the trust. This individual or entity is called a trustee. A trustee can be initially yourself, a professional with financial knowledge, a relative or loyal friend, or a corporation. There are pluses and minuses to each type of trustee. An individual trustee may provide a more personal touch, but may die or move away. A corporate trustee may be less personal but provides experience, investment skills, permanence and impartiality. More than one trustee can be named by the grantor if he or she wishes.

A document that provides instructions to your designated Trustee regarding the management of your Trust Assets during your lifetime, should you become unable to continue to act as your Trustee. You can also specify in the Trust Document what the Trustee is authorized to do and not authorized to do with the Trust assets.

A document giving your agent or agent(s) certain powers over your assets should you become incapable of doing so. For example, powers you may wish to include might be: the power to buy, sell and borrow against various assets, the power to deposit and withdraw from various investment accounts, the power to make gifts, the power to file tax returns, the power to change beneficiary designations on accounts.

A document that you sign under required formalities, that designates who you want to manage your assets at your death, to whom you wish your assets distributed, and what powers the manager (executor) has over the assets until their distribution.

a) Irrevocable Trusts (once established by a Trust Document and the transfer of assets to the Trustee, cannot be changed or revoked), and include Qualified Personal Residence Trusts, Grantor Retained Annuity Trusts, Irrevocable Life Insurance Trusts, and Charitable Remainder or Charitable Lead Trusts.

b) Business Entities (which have governing documents dictating the management of the entity's assets and designation of managers of the assets) such as Limited Liability Companies, Family Limited Partnerships, and Subchapter S Corporations.