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The Coleman Law Firm is a Jacksonville, Florida estate planning, elder law, and probate Florida law firm of  lawyers and attorneys who practice in the areas of estate planning, wills and trusts, elder law and Medicaid planning, financial and tax planning, Florida estate taxes, business succession planning, small business law, including business entity selection and formation (corporations, limited liability companies, limited partnerships, etc.), wealth preservation and asset protection planning, charitable planning, Florida probate and trust administration, Florida probate litigation , estate litigation, and trust litigation.  We are a participating attorney in the AARP Legal Services Network.

You will find the following information at this page of this website:

1. Florida Estate Planning

2. Florida Advance Directives

3. Florida Wills and Trusts

4. Florida Probate Administration and Litigation

5. Florida Medicaid Planning and Qualified Income Trusts

6. The Coleman Law Firm

FLORIDA ESTATE PLANNING

We believe the proper definition of estate planning is to control your assets while you are alive, protect your assets for the benefit of your family and loved ones, provide for the management of your assets and your own personal care in the event of an incapacity, and to see that upon death your assets pass to the people you want to receive them, in the manner that you want, at the time you want, at the least possible cost for Federal or Florida estate taxes and professional fees for probate attorneys and lawyers, and other professionals.

The mission of the Florida estate planning, asset protection, probate and elder law lawyers and attorneys at The Coleman Law Firm is to strive for our clients to achieve their estate planning goals and objectives consistent with that definition of estate planning.

We implement that mission by engaging our clients in comprehensive estate planning where our first objective is to gain a full understanding of each client’s needs, desires, goals, and objectives, as well as their fears and concerns, as it relates to their family, their estate planning, Federal and Florida estate taxes, so that we can assist them in determining what legal documents, wills, trusts, powers of attorney, etc., will be needed to achieve their estate planning objectives.

Our focus is not exclusively on the passage of wealth at death, but includes consideration of lifetime estate planning needs and concerns to plan for incapacity, for long term care, and for protecting assets during life, so the value and benefit of the assets you have accumulated in your estate are for your benefit and the benefit of your family and loved ones.

As Florida estate planning attorneys, we initiate our professional attorney-client relationship with our clients by seeking to understand your circumstances, your family members and relationships, and your estate planning goals and objectives, as well as your fears and concerns about probate, incapacity, guardianship, long term care planning, estate taxes, and other related matters.  We want to know and understand about your individual family members, their strengths, their weaknesses, their talents, their needs and their desires.  Only by truly understanding the dynamics of your family can we then identify and help you understand the various options that are appropriate and available to deal with the specific estate planning circumstances that are unique to you and your family members.

After we have gained an understanding of your needs and desires, and you have learned about the advantages and disadvantages of the various estate planning tools and techniques, options and alternatives, that are available for your use to achieve your estate planning goals and objectives, and deal with your fears and concerns, we then, together with you, design an estate plan that is specifically tailored to help you accomplish the purposes for which you initiated the estate planning process.

Our estate planning process begins with an examination of each client’s needs for advance directives that are appropriate for them and their circumstances.  Advance directives include Florida durable powers of attorney, designations of health care powers, designation of preneed guardians, and Florida living wills.  From there we proceed to evaluate their needs for incapacity and for long term care planning.  We examine federal and Florida estate tax issues, as well as income taxes planning issues.  We then develop a blue print for the Florida wills and trusts, and other ancillary estate planning documents that will be needed to accomplish the efficient transfer of your wealth at death, the protection of your assets during your lifetime, and the care and the management of your assets in the event of your disability or incapacity.  

At each stage of the planning process we are always aware of the income and estate tax implications of every aspect of your estate planning, as well as the asset protection elements of every plan.  There is little benefit to having a great estate plan, if all of your assets can be lost to third parties because your assets were not properly titled or structured to legally protect them against third party creditor claims.  We look at the opportunities to provide long term asset protection for the next generation, or successive generations, as well as generational planning to minimize taxes through successive generations where that is appropriate.  We help our clients evaluate options for charitable planning from the perspective of income tax savings, as well as major philanthropy through private foundations, donor advised funds, or supporting organizations.

Our legal documents are designed to achieve all of the estate planning, asset protection, or other objectives that have been incorporated into each client’s estate plan.  Each legal document is tailored to the specific requirements of the client’s unique circumstances.  The wills and trusts documents that we prepare for you are so unique and specific to you and your estate planning goals and objectives, that we copyright each one of them.

If you need to plan for your potential incapacity, for long term care, for asset protection, for income and estate tax savings, for wills and trusts, please contact the Jacksonville, Florida estate planning, probate, elder law, guardianship and Florida asset protection lawyers and attorneys at The Coleman Law Firm so that we can help you design and implement a plan that meets your unique needs.

In the following paragraphs, we will discuss briefly several of the major topics covered in our website.  There is a more detailed discussion of each topic on the pages that follow. 

Thank you for visiting with us and if you have any questions or we can provide you additional information, please be sure to let us know.  [Back to Top of Page]

FLORIDA ADVANCE DIRECTIVES

Advance directives include several different documents that are all designed to provide for some aspect of your care in the event of your absence or incapacity.

The most common of these documents is the durable power of attorney, which is a document that allows you to designate the person or persons who you want to handle your business and financial affairs in the event of your absence or incapacity.  You should expect your durable power of attorney to be drafted to deal with your specific circumstances.  It should not be a one size fits all, cookie-cutter document. 

If both you and your spouse are in your first marriage, of long term duration, and you have one set of common children, your durable power of attorney most likely should be different from the power of attorney for someone who is in their second or third marriage, as is their spouse, and you have children from a previous marriage, your spouse has children from a previous marriage, perhaps you have children together, and you want your assets to be available for your spouse’s support and comfort after your death, but you want your assets to go to your children after your spouse’s death.  A Florida power of attorney can include provisions to allow your attorney in fact change your last will and testament or your revocable living trust, to change beneficiary designations for life insurance policies or retirement plans; or your Florida durable power of attorney can exclude those provisions, and include others.

Your Florida power of attorney can be drafted to include provisions for providing for the care of pets, or for the operation of a business or farm, or any other specific circumstance you want covered.  The more complete and specific a Florida power of attorney is drafted, the more likely that it will serve the purpose you intended.  As you review the related section of this website dealing with Florida Power of Attorney law, keep in mind that you have the right to a Florida power of attorney that is designed to be as comprehensive or as limited as you want it to be.

Other advance directives provided for in Florida law include the Designation of Health Care Surrogate, the Declaration of Pre-Need Guardian, and the Living Will.  Again, though there are statutory forms for each of these documents, your Florida advance directive should be designed to accomplish your specific desires or deal with your unique concerns.  Even the Florida living will, made famous by the Terry Schiavo case, can be annotated to provide coverage of things that may be more important to you than to other people.  In many, perhaps most cases, the Florida statutory forms are satisfactory and legally sufficient.  [For a free Florida Living Will download, or a free Florida Designation of Health Care Surrogatre form, please go to our page for Free Legal Forms.]  You have the right to insist that your Florida estate planning documents are tailored to your needs.  [Back to Top of Page]

FLORIDA MEDICAID PLANNING

We assist many clients with the process of planning, applying for, and qualifying for Medicaid benefits to help pay for nursing home costs for loved one who find skilled nursing care a necessity.  The Medicaid planning process includes carefully designed and implemented spend down plans to preserve the family's assets to the extent legally possible, while ensuring that the family member who is institutionalized has proper care at all times. Medicaid planning in Florida may require the use of a qualified income trust, sometimes called a Miller trust or a QIT.  A Medicaid qualified income trust is a trust that is used to shield excess income, income above the level allowable by Medicaid law for eligibility for Medicaid benefits, so that the skilled nursing home resident is eligible to receive Medicaid benefits despite their income level exceeding the allowable income limit.  We provide our clients with very detailed directions for the proper use and maintenance of the qualified income trust, to comply with all of the Florida laws and rules governing the administration of a qualified income trust.

FLORIDA WILLS AND TRUSTS

As discussed above with reference to advance directives, and even more so with Florida wills and trusts, you have the right to have your Florida estate planning documents reflect your estate planning objectives that are unique to your needs and that deal with the estate planning issues involved in your specifically designed estate plan.  Your family, while it may share many characteristics with other families, is unique unto itself.  Your estate plan should incorporate a FL last will and testament or Florida revocable living trusts that effectively deal with the distinctive estate planning needs, goals, objectives, dreams, desires, fears and concerns that are uniquely yours.

There are two major distinctions between a Florida estate plan based on a last will and testament, and an estate plan based on a revocable living trust.  If properly funded (meaning the transfer or re-titling of assets), the revocable trust (1) allows for more effective planning for the management of your estate in the event of your incapacity, and (2) may allow one to avoid a Florida probate.  A more detailed explanation of Florida Wills can be  found in the section of this website entitled Do You Have A Will.  A discussion of the Revocable Living Trusts in Florida is in the section bearing that same title.  Both Florida probate administration and Florida trust administration are discussed more completely in separate sections of this website entitled Probate in Florida , and Trust Administration.  There also is a more detailed discussion of Probate Litigation in Florida and Trust Litigation in Florida to further develop the comparison of using a Fl will based plan or a trust based plan, especially where you have multiple parcels of real estate in multiple states.

Basic estate planning is focused on the use of a Florida last will and testament or revocable living trust as the foundation of your estate plan.  If you have accumulated a larger estate that may be subject to Federal or Florida estate taxes, it is necessary to consider more sophisticated estate planning tools, both because of the potential impact of Federal estate taxes and Florida estate taxes, and the need to provide additional structure or control over the distribution of the estate assets.  When more sophisticated estate tax planning is appropriate or desirable, there are a number of different trusts and other techniques that may be appropriate for your Florida estate planning portfolio.  You will find it beneficial to consult with a Jacksonville, Florida estate planning attorney and asset protection lawyer at The Coleman Law Firm, to assist you in determining which of the many techniques are most appropriate for you, your family, and your circumstances.

Various types of irrevocable trusts are available for consideration.  These include, the Florida irrevocable life insurance trust (ILIT), the private annuity trust, the qualified personal residence trust (QPRT), a Retirement Plan trust, Intentionally Defective Grantor Trust (IDGT), Grantor Retained Annuity Trust (GRAT), a Domestic Asset Protection Trust (DAPT), charitable remainder trust (CRT), charitable lead trust (CLT), and other types of Florida trusts that are used for specific purposes. For instance, if a spouse is not a U.S. citizen, it is important to consider the use of a qualified domestic trust (QDOT) to avoid unnecessary Federal estate taxation or Florida estate taxation immediately upon the death of the U.S. citizen spouse.  Estate planning needs, estate tax and income tax issues, and asset protection needs should always be considered by your Florida estate planning lawyer or estates attorney when doing such planning.

Other estate planning techniques can be used where there is a need that may be unrelated to Federal estate taxes or Florida estate taxes or pure estate planning objectives, such as asset protection planning objectives.  These techniques include family limited partnerships, limited liability companies, self cancelling installment notes, beneficiary controlled trusts, domestic asset protection trusts, premarital agreements, post-marital agreements, shareholder’s buy-sell agreements, long term care contracts, personal care contracts, and many others. Many of these estate planning techniques have benefits from an asset protection perspective as well as estate planning.

The important point to remember as you move through your Florida estate planning process is that your estate plan should deal with your objectives, goals, desires, fears and concerns.  It should be as individual as you and your family, so that your unique estate planning and asset protection needs are appropriately addressed and dealt with effectively.

If you want a Florida estate planning attorney or estates lawyer who will design an estate plan that will effectively deal with the individual circumstances involving your family and loved ones, please contact the Jacksonville, Florida estate planning and asset protection lawyers and estates attorneys at The Coleman Law Firm so that we can help you achieve your estate planning goals and objectives.  Our toll free phone number is (888) 492-2468, or you may email us at Info@TheColemanLawFirm.net  [Back to Top of Page]

FLORIDA PROBATE ADMINISTRATION AND LITIGATION

As experienced Florida probate lawyers and attorneys, we know how important it is for the probate estate administration process to be completed as soon as reasonably possible, and as efficiently as possible, regardless of whether the estate is simply a Florida probate for real estate, to probate a deed for real estate in Florida, or an estate that is subject to the estate tax.  Our Jacksonville, Florida probate lawyers and estates attorneys  provide our clients with complete and timely information regarding the status and activities of each probate case.  We are familiar with Florida probate law, estates law, guardianship law, Florida probate rules, Florida probate courts and the Florida probate forms necessary for complying with Florida probate law.  Our Jacksonville, Florida probate lawyers and trust attorneys counsel our clients on each phase of the probate estate administration process and provide probate information and direction for each step that must be taken in the Florida probate process.  We have substantial experience in the probate of Florida real estate.  Our Jacksonville, Florida probate lawyers, estate lawyers, and trust attorneys promptly respond to all questions that are asked, and patiently provide our clients with a complete explanation containing all of the probate information regarding what needs to be done to comply with Florida probate law, and why.

As experienced probate lawyers and estates attorneys we are knowledgeable of Florida probate law, Florida probate courts, Florida probate rules, and understand the emotional issues that become involved in probate litigation and estate litigation, whether the issues involve Florida wills contests, will disputes, inheritance disputes, Florida probate litigation for removal of a personal representative or executor from a probate estate, or, for removal of a personal representative for breach of fiduciary duty by the Florida personal representative, or a will challenge based on irregularities in the formal requirements for the execution of a Florida will, forgeries, the exercise of undue influence in the procuring of a Florida will, the will maker's lack of capacity or inability to understand the contents of the Florida last will and testament, the improper administration of a Florida probate estate by the personal representative, or disputes that arise between the surviving spouse and the children of previous marriages, especially where the Florida spousal elective share or a Florida inheritance through intestacy may be involved. Our Jacksonville, Florida probate lawyers, trust attorneys and estate attorneys are also experienced in pursuing actions for abuse of a power of attorney pursuant to the Florida power of attorney laws.

Our legal fees for representing you in the administration of a probate estate administration will depend on the facts and circumstances of your particular case.  Often our probate lawyers, trust attorneys, and estate attorneys, will work on a flat fee or fixed fee basis.  Other times, a probate lawyer's, trust attorney's or estate attorney's hourly rates are appropriate.  In appropriate Florida probate or Florida will contests our Jacksonville, Florida probate lawyers will consider working on a contingent fee basis, which means there is no fee if there is no recovery for you.  In particular, if your Florida probate administration is for the sole purpose of a Florida real estate probate, i.e., transferring title to real property, our Fl probate lawyers usually will work on a fixed fee basis, so that you will know from the beginning exactly what your total cost will be for the Florida probate process.

If you need legal representation in Jacksonville, Florida, or other locations in the Northeast Florida area for Florida probate administration to probate a Florida last will and testament, to probate Florida real estate, for Florida probate litigation or estate litigation, a Florida guardianship, to pursue a claim for abuse of a power of attorney, or any other Florida probate related matter that is in the Florida probate courts, please contact The Coleman Law Firm, for your Jacksonville, Florida probate, trust or guardianship lawyer or attorney by calling toll free (888) 492-2468 or by email to Info@TheColemanLawFirm.net [Back to Top of Page]

THE COLEMAN LAW FIRM

The Florida law firm’s founder, C. Randolph Coleman, has been a Florida estate planning attorney, wills and trusts, and probate lawyer for over 30 years, is a frequent lecturer and nationally recognized speaker in the areas of estate planning, financial planning, Florida probate, and asset protection. He co-authored The New Florida Trust Code, Lorman Educational Services, (2008), Trusts for Pets: Planning for Pets Under the Florida Trust Code, The Florida Bar Continuing Education Program (2008, 2005); Asset Protection Techniques in Florida, National Business Institute (2004); and authored Family Limited Partnerships in Florida (Chapter: “The Use of Family Limited Partnerships in Estate Planning”), National Business Institute (2002); Key Issues in Estate Planning and Probate in Florida (Chapter: “Protecting the Passage of Wealth”), National Business Institute (1997); Advanced Estate Planning Techniques in Florida (Chapter: “The Use of Family Limited Partnerships in Estate Planning”) National Business Institute (1995).  Mr. Coleman was the Florida Director of Asset Protection Planning for the Florida Physicians Association from 1997 to 2006, and is a member of WealthCounsel, LLC, a national association of estate planning and wealth preservation attorneys and lawyers.

Mr. Coleman and The Coleman Law Firm are listed in the Martindale-Hubbell® Bar Register of Pre-Eminent Lawyers, which lists only those select lawyers who have earned the A-V® Rating in the Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory and have therefore been designated by their colleagues as pre-eminent in their field.

Mr. Coleman is a member of The Florida Bar, The American Bar Association, the National Association of Elder Law Attorneys, and the Academy of Florida Elder Law Attorneys .  Mr. Coleman is a graduate of the University of Florida of (BSBA ‘72) and the University of Florida College of Law (JD, with honors ‘78), and serves on the Executive Committee of the UF College of Law Alumni  Council.  He was a practicing Florida certified public accountant for six years prior to entering private law practice in 1978.  [Back to Top of Page]

The Coleman Law Firm is a Jacksonville, Florida estate planning, elder law, and probate Florida law firm of  lawyers and attorneys who practice in the areas of estate planning, wills and trusts, elder law and Medicaid planning, financial and tax planning, Florida estate taxes, business succession planning, small business law, including business entity selection and formation (corporations, limited liability companies, limited partnerships, etc.), wealth preservation and asset protection planning, charitable planning, Florida probate and trust administration, Florida probate litigation and trust litigation.  We are a participating attorney in the AARP Legal Services Network.