Estate Planning Mediation Practice Areas
According to AARP, 50-60% of Americans have no Wills, Trusts or formal estate plans to instruct those left behind how to manage things when we become incapacitated or die. Whatever reason exists for having no estate plan, conflicts arise that seriously damage family relationships and finances. With no estate plan when someone dies or becomes incapacitated, the family often ends up in a lawsuit. Yet, before a death occurs the mere process of estate planning can cause serious disputes. Our mediator is here to help you make peace.
Mediation resolves disputes privately, out of court. Gale Allison helps all sides communicate with each other and avoid confrontation to mediate a written, signed solution.
Mediating Estate Planning Issues of All Kinds
Estate planning controversies arise from verbal promises, assumptions, claims on items, and confusion about how assets pass. Blended family matters often cause unplanned disinheritances. Differing beliefs, faiths, philosophies, and cultures cause friction. Planning is especially hard when family “secrets” exist, but without a plan, the family can be destroyed later.
Gale Allison handles the conflicts that arise during the estate planning process, involving the whole family if conflicts are likely. Her goal is to help people communicate about difficult topics to settle their differences and live in peace. Difficult topics might include:
- Wills, Trusts, Beneficiary Designations
- End of Life choices (Advance Directives, DNRs, Heroic Measures, etc.)
- Fiduciary Choices (Trustees, Executors, Personal Representatives, Administrators, Guardians, Agents for Powers of Attorney, Co-owners, Co-signers, et al.)
- Mental Competency
- Beneficiaries, Inheritances / Disinheritances
- Estate Tax Accountability
- Asset Titles and Values
- Financial Transactions, Life Insurance, Investments, Charitable Legacies
Nationwide Estate Planning Mediator
Gale Allison knows the parties in Estate Planning disputes settle by removing unpleasant confrontation. She knows participants in the dispute recognize their needs and priorities, but require help to communicate and stay on task to find solutions. Without taking sides or making decisions she facilitates exploring and creating options to meet their mutual interests. She clearly sets and reinforces expectations, diplomatically keeping the focus on needs rather than positions or demands. She helps the estate planning attorney resolve issues while and retain the whole family as clients by taking the heat for challenges, preventing the attorney from having to take sides. Working easily between clients, attorneys, and independent expert resources she assures everyone understands the written agreement and the consequences of failure to agree. She helps people divided by differences create enforceable solutions and make peace.
Gale Allison has decades as an estate planning attorney before becoming a certified mediator. She knows the components of a solid estate plan and its likely outcomes. Helping people customize creative estate solutions is her approach to mediating Estate Planning conflicts. See her mediation credentials, explore her other types of mediation, and learn more in her Blog.