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Estate planning can involve many variables and can be fraught with potential ethical pitfalls and malpractice issues. It’s especially important for new estate planning attorneys to be aware of these risks and how to avoid them. With the proper precautions, you can prevent exposing yourself to severe case mismanagement consequences, including suspension or disbarment, civil action, and criminal charges.

Obviously, your estate planning clients deserve the best solutions for their particular needs. But are you actually providing peerless service that reflects the best of what your firm could be? And here’s a deeper question to go with that first one: if not, why not? What’s really causing friction at the firm?

As the federal estate tax exemption continues to rise – now at $5,450,000 per individual, double that for married couples – estate tax-oriented planning is relevant for fewer and fewer clients. As the legal industry shifts focus away from federal transfer tax, one of the new areas of concentration is planning for clients who are not U.S. citizens, but who seek to invest, do business, or send family members to the United States.