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Estate Planning and Administration

Virginia Estate Planning Lawyers for Business Owners

Keeping your success in the family may be the most important thing you can do for your business. Spotts Fain has extensive experience helping successful people preserve financial assets for family members and other beneficiaries.

Our estate planning and administration law group includes:

Our attorneys approach estate planning with an understanding that there are often very sensitive and private family matters involved in the decisions. We endeavor to provide our clients with an estate plan that meets not only the objectives of preservation of our clients’ estates, but also a plan that meets our clients’ objectives with regard to their family needs.

Contact us to discuss your specific estate planning, probate administration and business succession planning needs.

Our firm offers a full range of estate planning services and our experience includes:

  • Tax planning to minimize or eliminate estate and gift taxes
  • Succession planning to ensure the continuation of a business
  • Insurance trusts, usually Irrevocable Trusts, to provide funding for the payment of estate taxes without increasing those taxes
  • Living trusts to avoid probate, facilitate asset administration or to provide special planning for a loved one
  • Limited liability companies and family limited partnerships to minimize the amount of estate and gift tax on assets that are passed on to loved ones
  • Wills, revocable and irrevocable Trusts, Powers of Attorney, and Advanced Medical Directives (Living Wills)
  • Charitable Trusts, gifts and bequests
  • Other important estate planning techniques
  • Conservation easements

Contested wills and trust litigation

We also have extensive experience helping individuals and families mediate and litigate disputes arising from the distribution of assets through contested wills and trusts. Our lawyers serve as lead counsel in probate litigation cases, as well as local counsel in federal courts and Virginia state courts.

We also Assist our Clients in Estate Administration

If your family has established a financial trust for the distribution of assets, we serve as experienced, ethical trust administrators. Upon the death of an estate holder, we can also handle the tough legal details that often confront a family at a very emotional time. Our attorneys are familiar with the probate process in courts throughout Virginia.

Contact us to learn more about how we can help you with your estate planning and administration needs.

August 20, 2010 - Michael Yager, a Legal Assistant in our Litigation Section, will speak at a NALA LIVE! presentation on electronic discovery, "E-Discovery - Slow Down the Train" 

January 27, 2010 - We are proud to announce that Spotts Fain Managing Director, Hugh M. Fain, III has been elected Chair of the Board of Governors of the Virginia Bar Association

December, 2009 - Spotts Fain congratulates our shareholders named in the 2009 Legal Elite list published by Virginia Business magazine.  They are Meade Spotts, Legislative/Regulatory; Hugh Fain, Civil Litigation; Betsy Davis, Labor and Employment; and Dana McDaniel, Intellectual Property. 

December 1, 2009 - Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Discrimination - article by Betsy Davis

October 29, 2009 - Betsy Davis spoke on Recent Changes in Employment Law at the 2009 Annual Meeting of the Virginia Association of Defense Attorneys

October 27, 2009 - Spotts Fain presented, Commercial Landlords and Tenants: Planning for and Dealing with Bankruptcy, presenters were Jen West and John Anderson

October 26, 2009 - Comments on President Obama's proposal to increase lending limits on SBA loans, by Tom O'Brien

October 21, 2009 - GINA is Coming - Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act - article by Betsy Davis

Spotts Fain Consulting Practice Areas