You've heard the phrase: "Friends don't let friends drive drunk." The same logic applies to estate planning. According to Caring.com, only 24 percent of Americans have a will. For some of the people you love most, you may be the only person in their life who will ever bring this up. Here's how to do it without making it weird, and what to tell them about what real planning looks like.

August is National Make a Will Month, which means this is exactly the right time.

The federal government is depositing $1,000 into savings accounts for every baby born between January 1, 2025 and December 31, 2028. The account is called a 530A Account, or a Trump Account, contributions opened July 4, 2026, and most families have not yet taken the step to claim it. Here is what it is, how to open one, and what it means for your family’s plan.

You've raised it before. Your spouse keeps saying "not now." But every week that passes without a plan is a week your family's future depends on chance instead of intention. Here's what to do when you're not on the same page, and what you can start doing today.

Most families believe they will inherit their loved one’s debt. Most debt collectors count on that fear. Your debt does not automatically transfer to your heirs, but it shapes how much they receive and what the estate must pay before they get anything. Here is exactly what happens and what your family needs to know before the collectors call.

The One Big Beautiful Bill raised the estate tax exemption to $15 million per person. That provision made headlines everywhere. A second one didn't: a deduction limitation buried in a Congressional footnote that tax lawyers say may create double taxation inside family trusts, including special needs trusts with as little as $400,000 in assets. Here is what families with trusts need to know right now.

Most families assume that a list of passwords will be enough to access accounts after a death. That assumption is wrong, and the problem is not the list. The problem is a layer of security most accounts now require that no password can bypass. Here is what actually keeps families locked out, and what a real digital estate plan looks like.

Whether you had an estate plan going into your marriage or not, your divorce changed everything. The settlement resolved custody and assets. It did not address what happens to your children if you die. For divorced and separated fathers, that gap almost always exists, even when it feels like the plan is in place. Here is what actually needs to be updated.

He shows up for every game, knows the bedtime routine by heart, and considers these children his family. The children consider him theirs. But under the law, he doesn't exist as a parent at all. This Father's Day, here is what every stepfather and father figure needs to know.

Father's Day is a celebration of presence. But the fathers who've truly done right by their families aren't just the ones who showed up every day. They're the ones who made sure their family would be protected whether they were there or not. If you haven't answered the one question that matters most, this is where to start.

You've thought about who would raise your children if something happened to you. But thinking about it and actually naming someone in a legal document are two very different things. If your family doesn't have an answer in writing, and something unexpected happens to you, a judge who has never met you or your children will make that decision. Here's what you need to know, and what you can do about it today.

When a spouse dies, most surviving partners expect grief. They do not expect a tax bill. The "widow penalty" is a real and largely unrecognized consequence of losing a spouse that can cost a surviving partner thousands of dollars more every year in taxes and Medicare premiums, at the worst possible moment in their life. Here is what it is, who it affects, and what you can do now, while there is still time to plan.

You signed the Power of Attorney (POA). You thought your family was protected. But when a parent or spouse loses capacity, that document you trusted may get rejected at the very bank where you need it most, and your family may not have time to fight it. As your Personal Family Lawyer®, this is exactly the kind of gap I make it my job to close before you ever need to find out the hard way.

Tony Hsieh sold Zappos to Amazon for $1.2 billion and built one of the most admired companies in America. When he died at 46 without a will or a trust, his family was left to sort out an estate worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Publicly, slowly, and painfully. What happened next is a lesson everyone who has something to protect should read.

You may think estate planning is about who gets what after you die. It is also about who stays safe, housed, informed, and protected in the days after a loss. The reported story of Marie-Thérèse Ross-Mahé shows how grief can turn into legal chaos when a family is left without a clear plan.

Your tax return is the most complete picture of your financial life you'll get all year. But most people close the folder without asking one critical question: if something happened to you tomorrow, are the people you love actually protected? Here's how to answer it before the window closes.

When you're a business owner, an easy or cheap estate plan can leave your business vulnerable. Learn why your business documents and estate plan must work together, and what can happen if they don’t.

A Michigan court case shows what happens when a parent dies and no one thought to plan for it. The child had a chronic medical condition, a contentious custody history, and relatives scrambling to get legal authority just to manage her care. The court battle that followed could have gone very differently without years of documented evidence. Here's what every parent needs to know before something like this happens to their family.

Your partner could be barred from your hospital room - not by hospital policy, but by law. Without a marriage certificate, the person you love most may have no legal authority over your health, your home, or anything you've built together. Here's what unmarried couples need to know.

You trust your spouse completely. But if you're in a blended family and your estate plan simply says "everything goes to my spouse," your own children could end up with nothing - not because anyone meant harm, but because ownership changes everything.

Retirement accounts follow different rules from other assets you may own. After you die, the people you love most may face unexpected tax burdens if you don’t understand how the rules work.