A Holisitc Approach to Estate Planning: Paramount in Protecting Your Family, Your Wealth, and Your Legacy
![handle is hein.journals/pepds7 and id is 147 raw text is: [Vol. 7: 1, 2007]
PEPPERDINE DISPUTE RESOLUTION LAW JOURNAL
A Holistic Approach to Estate
Planning: Paramount in Protecting
Your Family, Your Wealth, and Your
Legacy
Melissa Street*
I. INTRODUCTION
THE GREATEST HERITAGE ANY OF US CAN LEAVE IS THE LOVE OF A
FAMILY'I
The most stable of familial relationships between adult siblings can be
shaken to its very core when it comes to receiving inheritances after their
parents' deaths. In addition, many times the real and personal property, par-
ents intend to gift to their children is passed on and used in a manner that the
parents never would have imagined or desired. This is because most parents
typically do not share their estate plans with their children while they are
still living in order to avoid any controversy that may arise. Rather, their
estate plans only become known after their deaths.3 Such secrecy can de-
stroy family, the gifts, businesses, and property left behind.4
The method by which one generation passes wealth on to the next, usu-
ally their adult children, is referred to as estate planning.5 Creating an estate
* Melissa Street will receive her Juris Doctorate from Pepperdine University School of Law in May
2007. Ms. Street currently works at Pepperdine's Center for Estate and Gift Planning. After gradua-
tion, Ms. Street will be working as an assoicate in the Estate Planning Division of Nordman, Cor-
many, Hair & Compton in Oxnard, California.
1 Susan N. Gary, The Greatest Heritage is the Love of a Family: The Larson Case and the Mediation
of Probate Disputes, I PEPP. DISP. RESOL. L.J. 233,234 n.12 (2001).
2 David Gage, et al., Holistic Estate Planning and Integrating Mediation in the Planning Process, 39
REAL PROP. PROB. & TR. J. 509, 510 (2004).
3id.
4 Id.
5 David Gage & John A. Gromala, Mediation in Estate Planning: A Strategy for Everyone's Benefit,
ELDER'S ADVISOR, THE JOURNAL OF ELDER LAW AND POST RETIREMENT PLANNING (November
2002), available at http://www.mediate.com/articles/gromala7.cfm.
141](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/pepds7&div=10&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
What Is HeinOnline?
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most
A Holisitc Approach to Estate Planning: Paramount in Protecting Your Family, Your Wealth, and Your Legacy
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most