Tax
The 2026 exemption sunset, and what it does not require you to do
Acting in haste is its own risk. A measured reading of the scheduled reduction, and the three circumstances in which it should change your plan.
February 12, 2026
A plan is not a stack of instruments. It is a set of decisions, written down carefully enough that they still hold thirty years from now, when the person who made them is not in the room.
The approach
Private Client is the widest department in the firm, and deliberately so. A household’s affairs do not divide neatly into estate planning on one side and a guardianship petition on the other. The same family may need a dynasty trust this year, a Marchman Act petition next month, and a parenting plan the year after. Handling all three under one roof means the lawyer already knows the family when the difficult call comes.
The work runs from the quietest planning to the most contested proceeding — trusts, powers of attorney and health care directives; probate and trust administration; will and trust contests; guardianship and guardian advocacy; dissolution, support, time-sharing and adoption. Most of it never reaches a courtroom, and that is the measure of whether it was done well.
Major areas within the department
Wills, revocable and irrevocable trusts, durable powers of attorney and health care directives — and, for larger or more complex estates, the advanced structures that move wealth efficiently across generations: dynasty trusts, GRATs, SLATs, asset protection planning and charitable and family-office structures.
We serve as, or as counsel to, the trustees, personal representatives, agents and guardians who administer an estate or a trust once it is in effect — probate and trust administration, accountings, and the litigation that follows when an instrument, an administration or a fiduciary’s conduct is contested.
Protecting the person and the property of someone who can no longer manage either — incapacity and guardianship proceedings, elder exploitation, Medicaid and long-term care planning, and special needs trusts that preserve eligibility for public benefits.
Baker Act and Marchman Act petitions brought on behalf of a family seeking involuntary examination, stabilization or treatment for a person in crisis.
Dissolution of marriage, child support and time-sharing, premarital and postmarital agreements, and adoption — handled with an eye on the estate plan the same family already has in place, so that one is never drafted blind to the other.
From the journal
Acting in haste is its own risk. A measured reading of the scheduled reduction, and the three circumstances in which it should change your plan.
The formal accounting is a communication before it is a filing. How the presentation of a trust accounting shapes what follows it.
Sequencing the trust work before the letter of intent, and why the order matters more than the terms.
Resources
Representative matters
Details are altered to preserve confidentiality.
Questions
Do I need a trust, or is a will enough?
A will alone means probate — public, slow, and costly in Florida. A trust avoids it, but only for property actually retitled into it. That second half is where most of the work lies, and where most plans quietly fail.
Can one firm handle both an estate plan and a family law matter?
In a family’s life they are the same matter. A dissolution rewrites a plan; a plan constrains a settlement. Handling both means neither is done blind to the other.
How often should a plan be revisited?
Every three years, and immediately upon a sale, a marriage, a birth, a death, or a move out of state.
The first conversation costs nothing, and commits you to nothing.
