Ah, those Latin words that lawyers love. Or, at least, used to. These days most lawyers do try to communicate in English, but some Latin terms persist because they are shorthand for well understood in ...

Question: Help! My will divides my estate among my “issue per stirpes,” but what does that mean? Answer: Per stirpes is Latin meaning “by roots” or “by branch.” “Issue” refers to everyone down the ...

Question: My estate plan leaves everything equally to my children, per stirpes. My son just adopted a little girl. My daughter has a stepson who she is raising, but she did not adopt him. If my son ...

When creating an estate plan, one of the most basic documents you may wish to include is a will. If you have a more complicated estate, you might also need to have a trust in place. Both a will and a ...

You've kept your will updated regularly to make sure your assets are distributed according to your wishes upon death. Have you done the same thing with your beneficiary designations? If not, your ...

Question: My mother signed her will in 1998 after my father died. It names her three children as equal beneficiaries. My sister died last year, so now it's just my brother and me. Will the share that ...

This week’s column continues the discussion of “legalese,” the strange language and terms that lawyers sometimes use. You may have heard, “What do you get when you cross the Godfather with a lawyer ...