Johnson and Gatewood, P.S.C.

	Johnson and Gatewood, P.S.C. www.johnsongatewood.com
	Since our founding, we at Johnson & Gatewood, P.S.C. have set our sights on being trustworthy, fair and honest with our clients. Those clients have learned a lesson over time: dealing with an attorney can be a positive, enjoyable and beneficial experience, when they select one who has values and experience dedicated to helping them. That is the idea upon which our firm has been built. We started with a foundation of well-defined values, values that call for serving clients as we would want to be served. Values that guide counsel we give to clients. Values that lead to relationships of trust. And we built this relationship with a mission in mind: To provide expert, empathetic and effective advice and representation from teams of professionals who are trustworthy, result-oriented, and fruitful in their endeavors. DIVERSITY OF EXPERIENCE Our estate planning and probate team has devised sensitive, caring and creative solutions in the following areas: Wills and Trusts Probate Administration Estate / Gift Tax Charitable Planning Power of Attorney Guardianships Living Wills Elder Law Family Law Debtor / Creditor Law Professional Small Businesses THE ESTATE PLANNING PROCESS Estate planning allows you to give what you want, to whom you want, when you want. Without estate planning, state law will dictate who gets your property, and will also dictate a drawn-out and expensive procedure, known as probate, to transfer your assets upon death. We begin the process by gathering information about your estate at an initial consultation with you (and your spouse, if you are married or domestic partners). During this meeting, we review your estate, discuss your goals and decisions in planning your estate, show you the benefits of planning, and establish a fee budget for all work. There is no charge for this initial meeting. We prepare documents, including wills, trusts and powers of attorney. We review these with you to assure their accuracy, then oversee their signing. We usually retain original documents for safekeeping, distributing copies to you and others as requested. We work together to transfer ownership of assets, as needed, to assure proper tax and probate savings. If you are confronted with the court-supervised distribution process known as probate; we strive to minimize the time and expense needed to conclude the process. However, proper estate planning is the best way to avoid probate. THE BILLING PROCESS Our firm has several policies about billing our services. The most important one is that we do not like surprises, and we have found clients feel the same way. In most cases we will make every effort to establish a clean action plan for the work we will do and the establish an agreement about the fees we will charge.