Grosse Pointe Law Center

Wills & Estate Planning Attorneys in Grosse Pointe, Michigan

Estate planning can begin with a few fundamental decisions: who should receive your property, who should handle financial matters if you cannot act for yourself, and who should make healthcare decisions if you become incapacitated. Those questions can be important for someone creating a first estate plan as well as someone whose existing documents no longer reflect current circumstances.

Grosse Pointe Law Center provides estate planning services from its Grosse Pointe office. The firm's estate work includes wills, financial powers of attorney, healthcare powers of attorney, and updates to existing estate plans. 

Attorney Kirstyn Cotton handles the firm's estate planning services. She joined Grosse Pointe Law Center as an associate after graduating from Wayne State University Law School and passing the Michigan bar in 2024.

Creating a Will for the First Time

A will allows someone to put instructions in place for the distribution of property after death rather than leaving those decisions unaddressed.

Grosse Pointe Law Center assists clients who are creating their first wills and want to establish how assets should be distributed. This provides an opportunity to identify the people who should receive property and put those wishes into a formal estate-planning document.

Creating a will can be relevant at many stages of adulthood. Someone does not necessarily need an unusually large or complicated estate before deciding that they want written instructions governing their property.

The process instead begins with considering what the individual owns, whom they want to benefit, and whether their wishes have been properly documented.

Updating an Estate Plan After Life Changes

An estate plan that reflected someone's wishes years ago may not necessarily continue to do so.

Grosse Pointe Law Center assists clients with updating existing estate plans as well as creating new ones. This can provide an opportunity to reconsider earlier decisions after changes in personal or family circumstances.

The firm's broader focus on divorce and family law makes these questions particularly relevant for clients whose family relationships have changed. An existing estate plan may have been prepared at a very different point in someone's life.

Reviewing the documents allows the individual to determine whether the people previously selected and the instructions previously established still reflect current intentions.

Choosing Someone to Handle Financial Matters

Estate planning also addresses situations that can occur during a person's lifetime.

Grosse Pointe Law Center prepares financial powers of attorney. These documents allow someone to designate another person to handle financial matters under the authority established in the document.

This can become important if illness, injury, or another circumstance leaves an individual unable to take care of financial responsibilities personally.

Choosing an agent in advance gives the individual an opportunity to decide who should be entrusted with that authority rather than waiting until assistance is already necessary.

A financial power of attorney therefore serves a different purpose from a will. One addresses authority during life, while the other establishes instructions concerning property after death.

Planning for Future Healthcare Decisions

A serious medical condition can also create questions about who has authority to make healthcare decisions.

Grosse Pointe Law Center prepares healthcare powers of attorney as part of its estate-planning services. These documents allow clients to select someone to make healthcare decisions if they become unable to make those decisions themselves.

Selecting that person in advance can provide clearer direction for family members during a medical crisis.

Together, financial and healthcare powers of attorney allow clients to address two important forms of lifetime decision-making while they are able to select the people they trust to act.

When an Existing Plan No Longer Reflects the Family

An estate plan should continue to reflect the individual’s current family, property and wishes. Documents prepared years earlier may name people who are no longer appropriate or contain instructions that no longer fit the client’s circumstances.

Marriage, divorce, the birth or adoption of a child, changes involving adult children, and the death of a beneficiary or chosen decision-maker can all prompt a review. Financial changes may matter as well. Property may have been acquired or sold, and the distribution originally planned may no longer make sense.

Reviewing an existing estate plan gives the client an opportunity to reconsider both inheritance instructions and lifetime decision-making authority. A person who remains comfortable with the basic plan may need only targeted updates, while substantial family or financial changes may call for broader revisions.

For clients experiencing a divorce or another major family transition, estate-planning documents deserve separate attention. Updating the estate plan can help ensure that the people named to receive property or exercise authority remain consistent with the client’s current intentions.

Practice Areas

• Estate Planning

• Wills

• Estate-Plan Reviews and Updates

• Financial Powers of Attorney

• Healthcare Powers of Attorney

• Incapacity Planning