Estate Planning
At Ruder Ware we strive to make a difference – and we appreciate differences. We enjoy working with a wide variety of clients to address their immediate and long-term estate planning needs. Our clients include couples with young families, small business owners, corporate executives, retirees, dairy producers, and philanthropists. We listen carefully and respond with innovative and flexible strategies designed to preserve, enhance, and transfer our clients’ assets as they desire.
Personal Client Services
Our estate planning attorneys apply their creativity, knowledge of the law, and drafting skills to tailor cost-effective estate plans for each client’s circumstances. They do not use a one-size-fits-most approach. Depending on your circumstances, our attorneys are able to provide a wide range of services, including:
- Income, gift, and estate tax planning
- Prenuptial Agreements
- Marital Property and Domestic Partnership Agreements
- Probate avoidance
- Planning for the sale or retention of a family business
- Planning for the financial security of family members
- Planning gifts to charities and individuals
- Guardianship
- Special needs planning
- Durable Powers of Attorney for Financial Matters
- Powers of Attorney for Health Care and Living Wills
- Wills
- Trusts (including trustee services if requested)
- Revocable and Irrevocable Living Trusts
- IRA Protection Trusts
- Irrevocable Life Insurance Trusts (ILITs)
- Qualified Terminable Interest Property (QTIPs) Trusts
- Qualified Personal Residence Trusts (QPRTs)
- Grantor Retained Annuity Trusts (GRATs)
- Generation-skipping Trusts
- Charitable Remainder Trusts
- Charitable Lead Trusts
Peace of Mind Through Organization
We also help clients organize their affairs to reduce the cost and simplify the administration of their estates. This includes coordinating beneficiary designations of life insurance policies and retirement plans, properly titling assets, and assisting with the collection of information that will be necessary for estate administration.
We Work With Your Trusted Advisors
Our attorneys will work directly with your accountant, financial planner, life insurance agent, and other professional advisors to ensure that the various components of your estate plan are integrated properly.
Founded in 1920, Ruder Ware provides business, employment, estate planning, and litigation services through its offices in Wausau, Eau Claire, and Green Bay, Wisconsin. A full-service law firm, over 40 attorneys provide clients with a one-stop approach to their legal needs. Ruder Ware, Business Attorneys for Business Success.
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Protecting Your Estate Plan from Challenges: No-Contest Clause Explained
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Gift Tax Basics
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What is Probate?
Trusts & Estates
Posted on December 13, 2021 by Ashley L. Hawley
Drafting an estate plan allows a person to put into writing their wishes for division of assets upon death. Sometimes this means making a choice to give more to one child over the other, or to completely write out natural heirs of law. An uncle whose nephew is like a son to him may bypass […]
Posted on November 22, 2021 by Shanna N. Yonke
Last week, I provided a brief overview of the gift tax in a vlog. You can view the vlog here. In this blog post, I’ll expand on basic gift tax concepts, just in time to make your holiday gifts. What is the gift tax? Basically, the gift tax is a tax imposed on the gratuitous […]
Posted on September 20, 2021 by Linda M. Danielson
So you’ve received an inheritance and you’re married. The person who left you the inheritance probably intended for it to benefit you, not your spouse, if you get divorced. How do you protect the inheritance? Wisconsin law provides limited protection. Under Wisconsin’s Marital Property Act, which governs the classification of assets during marriage and on […]
Posted on September 1, 2021 by Ruder Ware Alumni
Estate planning is a process that must be customized to fit each individual’s unique situation. Each individual has their own priorities and issues to address. The priorities and issues for an unmarried individual are often different than those for married couples. Some of the common priorities and issues that arise in estate planning for unmarried […]
Posted on August 4, 2021 by Ruder Ware Alumni
If you’re preparing to send a child off to college this fall, you should add two documents to your back-to-school checklist: (1) a power of attorney for health care, and (2) a durable power of attorney for finances. Without these two documents, you may not have the authority to make health care decisions or manage […]
Posted on July 22, 2021 by Ashley L. Hawley
“Probate” is a legal term for the Court process of transferring assets out of a deceased person’s name and to that person’s heirs and/or beneficiaries. The difference between the term “heir” and the term “beneficiary” is that an heir is someone who is entitled to receive the assets of a deceased person who died without […]
Posted on June 16, 2021 by Shanna N. Yonke
Summertime is a special time of year in Wisconsin. It brings many families to cabins where they create memories and traditions that will be cherished forever. However, many problems arise if families do not create a plan for the future ownership and management of the family cabin. The cabin may be subject to the claims […]
Posted on April 19, 2021 by Mark D. Munson and Ruder Ware Alumni
Ruder Ware’s Trusts & Estates blog has featured several posts (for example, Call to Action: Review Your Estate Plan in Light of the SECURE Act and Why SECURE Act Matters to You) on the SECURE Act, a federal law effective January 1, 2020, that made significant changes to the payout provisions of inherited retirement benefits, […]
Posted on April 9, 2021 by Mark J. Bradley and Shanna N. Yonke
In the United States Congress, there is an arduous journey before a bill becomes law. See the classic School House Rock! video, “I’m Just a Bill.” But there is a common theme running through some gift and estate tax bills that have been introduced in Congress this year. That is: an appropriate way to raise […]
Posted on March 17, 2021 by Ashley L. Hawley
Our team here at Ruder Ware has focused previous blogs and other educational materials on ways to avoid adult guardianship (see Related Articles section at the end of my post); however, there may be some instances where guardianship is unavoidable. Earlier this month, I attempted to simplify the guardianship process in my vlog. This blog […]
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