Legacy Planning | Brandon Davis, Esq.
An estate plan isn’t paperwork. It’s a set of decisions about the people you love, what you’ve built, and what you want carried forward. I approach legacy planning the same way I approach everything: as something that should reflect who you actually are, not a boilerplate document with your name on it.
Most people put off estate planning because it feels like staring into a dark room. I get it. But the goal here isn’t to dwell on what you won’t be around for. It’s to build a structure, much like a business, that takes care of you and your family for the long haul.
Wills and Trusts: Choosing the Right Vehicle for Your Legacy
When most people think estate planning, they think wills. The Last Will and Testament shows up in movies, in family conversations, and in passing comments after someone dies without one. It’s the default mental image, and it’s only half the picture.
A will directs how your assets are distributed after death and names guardians for minor children. It has to go through the Virginia probate process, which means a court oversees the transfer of your property. That’s not necessarily bad. Probate in Virginia is relatively streamlined for smaller estates, but it is public, it takes time, and it carries court costs.
A trust operates differently. The assets held inside a revocable living trust don’t pass through probate at all. They transfer directly to your named beneficiaries according to the terms you’ve set. During your lifetime, you remain in complete control. You’re typically both the grantor and the trustee, and you can change, update, or revoke the trust at any point. That flexibility disappears with irrevocable trusts, which can’t be easily modified once they’re in place. Irrevocable structures, though, offer meaningful advantages for Medicaid planning, asset protection, and reducing your taxable estate.
The right choice depends on your estate, your goals, and how much administrative simplicity matters to you. We’ll work through that together.
Available instruments include:
Revocable Living Trust
avoids probate, maintains full control during your lifetime, easily updated
Irrevocable Trust
removes assets from your taxable estate; useful for long-term protection but with limited flexibility once signed
Last Will and Testament
directs asset distribution through probate; names guardians for minor children
Testamentary Trust
created within a will and activated at death; useful for managing assets on behalf of minor beneficiaries
One scenario I see more than people expect: a client updates their trust after a divorce but neglects to change the beneficiary designation on a $350,000 retirement account. That account doesn’t pass through the trust. It passes directly to whoever is named on the beneficiary form, which in that case was the ex-spouse. The trust doesn’t touch it. Making sure your documents and your beneficiary designations are aligned is part of what I do.
Powers of Attorney and Advanced Medical Directives: Your Core Contingency Documents
These two documents aren’t just for people with large estates or complex family situations. They’re for anyone 18 or older who wants someone they trust to be able to act on their behalf if they can’t.
The Durable Power of Attorney authorizes your named agent to handle legal and financial matters on your behalf: paying bills, managing bank accounts, handling real estate transactions, exercising legal rights. It can be drafted narrowly to cover specific actions or broadly to give your agent full authority. The “durable” designation matters because it means the document remains valid even if you become incapacitated, which is exactly when you need it most.
The Advanced Medical Directive (sometimes called a Living Will) does a different job. It speaks for you on healthcare decisions when you can’t speak for yourself. What interventions you want, which you don’t, and under what circumstances. It can also name a healthcare agent who has authority to communicate your wishes to medical providers and handle decisions that fall outside what’s explicitly spelled out in the document.
Virginia Code § 54.1-2981 et seq. governs the requirements for advance directives in the Commonwealth. The documents need to be signed and witnessed properly to be valid and enforceable. I handle that.
These documents are especially important in situations people don’t always anticipate. A college student leaving home for the first time. An adult child whose parent is aging. Anyone heading into surgery, or a couple where one spouse handles most of the finances. If something happens and these aren’t in place, the people who love you may have to petition a court for guardianship or conservatorship just to help you. That process takes time and money, often while simultaneously managing a medical crisis, that a simple document would have prevented.
There is also a distinction worth knowing. A general power of attorney terminates automatically if you become incapacitated, which is precisely when you need it. A durable power of attorney stays in effect through incapacity. The word matters. I draft durable instruments by default and make sure you understand what your agent can and can’t do under the authority you’re granting.
Legacy Preservation: What Sets This Practice Apart
Any attorney can draft a will. Templates exist online that will produce a technically valid document for less than the cost of dinner out. What they won’t do is capture anything about you.
I include memorial service planning and elections in my package plans, so your family isn’t left guessing how to honor your memory at one of the hardest moments of their lives. You’ve made those decisions. They’re in writing. That’s one less thing they have to figure out while grieving.
For clients who want to go further, I offer a family consultation, either by video or in person, with your named beneficiaries and designees. The goal is to sit everyone down, walk through the plan, explain the intent behind the decisions, and make sure there are no surprises. That conversation prevents more family conflict than any single clause in any document ever written. People fight over estates not because the documents were wrong, but because nobody explained the reasoning while there was still time to do it. I fix that while you’re still in the room.
And then there are legacy riders. A way to pass down the things that don’t have a dollar value. The Christmas recipes. The lessons. The voice that won’t be in the room anymore. I integrate memory and legacy preservation products into estate practice because you don’t just deserve to move assets efficiently. You deserve to endure.
When to Review and Update Your Plan
An estate plan isn’t a one-time event. It’s a living document that needs to stay current with your life. The most common trigger events I see:
Package Plans
I offer fixed-price package plans because estate planning shouldn’t feel like an unpredictable expense. Every plan includes consultations, planning sessions, and a full walkthrough of how the documents work together and why they’re structured the way they are. No billing surprises, no hourly meter running while you ask questions.
01
Essentials
Durable Power of Attorney and Advanced Medical Directive
02
Protector
Essentials plus a Last Will and Testament
03
Assurance
Essentials plus a Revocable Living Trust
04
Legacy
Assurance package plus five years of bi-annual review check-ins, one legacy preservation option, and a family consultation included
Why Work With Me?
My estate planning practice isn’t template-driven, and it isn’t transactional. I approach every plan as something that should be uniquely yours, from the planning conversations through to the finished documents.
Let’s Build Something That Lasts
Consultations are $200, creditable toward your engagement. That fee isn’t a barrier. It’s a filter for people who are serious about protecting what they’ve built and the people they’re building it for.