The thought of planning for one's passing can be a sensitive and emotional topic, but taking steps to ensure a smooth transition of assets can be a profound gift to your family. In this article, we'll explore how using revocable living trusts, beneficiary designations on financial accounts, joint accounts with the right of survivorship, and Transfer on Death Deeds can alleviate the burden of an expensive, time-consuming, and stressful probate process for your loved ones.
Read MoreWhether you are a business owner, a contractor, or anyone who has been presented with a contract, it's easy to get caught up in the excitement of a new opportunity or become overwhelmed from legal jargon. Whether it's a job offer, a business partnership, or any written agreement, the eagerness to seal the deal and move on can sometimes overshadow the need for caution. However, even if you don’t read a contract, you are bound to its terms. If the terms are vague or can be construed in a way that is not in your interest, you can find yourself in hot water quickly. At Wakefield Law, we make sure your contract is strong, fair, and won’t lead to unwelcome surprises.
Read MoreAs we all know, life can take an unexpected turn in the blink of an eye. Often, accidents can occur at the worst time and when they lead to injury, rehabilitation necessity, unpaid bills mounting, missing work, and stress, the last thing people want to deal with is an insurance adjuster and making sure you are protecting your rights. We always say to clients that after an accident, your top priority should be to focus on your healing and recovery. Problem is, reality can sometimes get in the way of focusing on recovery and when faced with all the fallout after an accident, it’s often way too overwhelming. That's where an experienced personal injury attorney can step in, shouldering the legal burdens and allowing you to concentrate on your health and well-being. At Wakefield Law, we understand the importance of this support during difficult times, and in this article, we'll explore how an attorney can be your greatest ally in a personal injury case.
Read MoreIn the realm of estate planning, Virginia residents often overlook the significance of wills and trusts. It's understandable, given that discussions about end-of-life matters can be uncomfortable. Also, the subject of estate planning isn’t taught or discussed in a traditional schooling environment. Usually, hard experience and discomfort going through a challenging process after a loved one passes away is the only education our potential clients have had. At Wakefield Law, we educate our clients about how having a well-structured estate plan is crucial for ensuring that your hard-earned assets are distributed as you intend and that your loved ones are protected.
Read MoreIf you are a new parent or expecting your first child, estate planning may be the furthest thing from your mind. However, becoming a parent is when estate planning becomes essential.
As a parent (or grandparent!), there are a thousand things to worry about. Having children in your life creates responsibility, and one of those responsibilities is ensuring that you have provided for their care if you are ever unable to provide it yourself. Please consider taking just a few minutes to read our top tips on what every parent needs to know about estate planning.
Read MoreHow do we avoid or mitigate the process of probate? That’s where we come in. When working with clients, we are focused on probate avoidance. Even if we are not doing a trust, we still advise clients regarding how to avoid or simplify the probate process for their heirs. The first tool we’ll talk about is beneficiary designation:
Read MoreWhether you have a small business with a few select clients, or you run a large business with dealings all over the state or country, it is very often that our clients have to deal with an unpaid invoice. Most frequently, the owing party just isn’t responding anymore. Whether it was financial difficulty, a dispute that went unresolved, or some other communication issue, our client is sitting there with a contract (oral or written), an invoice, but no payment.
Read MoreAt Wakefield Law, we have been representing individuals who were injured in vehicle and premise accidents throughout Northern Virginia for over 30 years. In that time, we have assisted clients to move smoothly through the process of taking care of their own health, resolving issues around missing work and repairing a damaged vehicle, negotiating with insurance companies, and getting paid fair compensation to make up for losses, inconvenience, and pain. We have also seen clients come to us after months of trying to resolve the impacts of a car accident on their own. Although we are still able to help, we can’t undo the months of worry, stress, pain, and other suffering that our clients have been through before hiring a professional to help guide them through this process. That’s why we are so passionate about making sure that everyone who is injured in an accident through no fault of their own is represented.
Read MoreSo often, when we think about estate planning, we think about the dying process – not a very comfortable subject to face. While death and making sure you have a plan in place for what happens to your assets after you pass away is very important, it’s not the only subject we handle throughout the estate planning process. The “life” side of estate planning is just as important when we are drafting your comprehensive plan. Setting aside wills and trusts, the “life” side of estate planning generally focuses on a careful drafting of the following documents:
Read MoreContracts are a part of almost every business. They can be written contracts that are fifty pages long with change orders and addenda, they can be one or two page format contracts, or they can be oral contracts arising from agreements. When you run a business, odds are you have run into the problem of providing goods or services to a customer who is delaying on making payments.
Read MoreBeneficiary Designation – A Critical Part of Estate Planning
When people think of estate planning, they usually think of Wills, Trusts, Deeds, Powers of Attorney, and Medical Directives. However, there are tons of other considerations when coming to the table with a family and addressing their unique familial and financial landscapes as they pertain to estate planning. Many of our clients don’t expect us to talk about beneficiary designation as often as we do. Electing beneficiaries and backup beneficiaries on every account that will allow it can avoid unnecessary time waste, stress, and can protect assets when the account owner passes away.
Read MoreEstate planning can be intimidating. Wills, Powers of Attorney, Guardianship, Deeds, Trusts, and lawyers. The subject of estate planning is very mysterious to most people and can even feel scary to talk about. This can cause individuals to leave estate planning goals on the back burner. Truly, estate planning isn’t too complicated. The goals are often the same: 1) avoid conflict between family and friends when people become incapacitated or pass away and 2) avoid probate. We try to make these subjects far more palatable at Wakefield Law – we always offer free consultations with no obligation in estate planning. A comprehensive review can shed light on the unknown. Also, when we actually do get hired, we can often offer flat fees for plans, which takes the guesswork out of how much services will cost. In this blog, we’ll have a quick overview of some of the most important concepts in estate planning.
Read MoreThe winter months are often the ones where our clients go over their books preparing for the upcoming tax season. Going over the books can be very helpful in seeing how the waning year went for your business – it also is hugely important to see what went wrong. Accounts receivable are a reality for every business. If you’re lucky, maybe an unpaid debt is a very rare thing, but it comes up for every type of business, regardless of quality or organization.
Read MoreIt’s engagement season! During the holiday season, lots of couples take that leap and get engaged to be married – There’s beautiful light displays, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Years, and Valentine’s Day is right around the corner. With the fiancé season upon us, it brings up the important question – do engaged couples, or even long-term partnered couples that have not been married, need estate planning documents? The short answer is YES – the most important considerations are not always who gets what when someone dies – they are often about making sure a fiancé, partner, or new spouse is solidified as their agent to make financial and medical decisions, instead of family members that would have been the default choice before partnering up.
Read MoreThe Thanksgiving Season just passed – it gave us the critically important opportunity to reflect on what is important and what we are thankful for. Now we enter the winter holiday season and again the central themes are family and togetherness. Obviously, the winter holiday season is also when we can show our loved ones we care with gifts. We are not recommending you skip the gifts (no grinches here at Wakefield Law), but a carefully planned out estate plan is without a doubt a tremendous gift that you can give to your family.
Read MoreWe talk with clients every single day about beneficiary designations. Making sure every single financial account has carefully listed primary and contingent beneficiaries listed is an absolutely critical component in the estate planning conversation. To explain, let’s talk about what they are first.
Read MoreAt Wakefield Law, we have lots of landlord and tenant clients. The questions of what makes up a lease, what provisions must be in a lease, and what to make sure is not in a lease are ones we examine every day. To be frank, most landlords just Google a lease agreement and present it to their prospective tenants for signature after filling in a few basic details. This is an excellent way to get into trouble in the leasing realm. It’s really important to review all the provisions in a lease for both the landlord and the tenant. Further, it’s necessary to review new and relevant law to make sure if additional documents or considerations need to be included in a new or renewed lease. These questions should be reviewed with an attorney – every lease and every situation is different, but the purpose of this article is just to point out frequently raised issues we face with clients. This is by no means a comprehensive list of what must be in a lease!
Read MoreThe estate planning process is a seldom taught subject. It’s easy to get overwhelmed or anxious when it comes to Wills, Trusts, and the like. However, this Halloween season, don’t get spooked when it comes to getting the documents you need set up. Every day, we’re working with clients to set up succession, inheritance, and emergency plans in place to make sure that if something happens, the right people are going to step up at the right time.
