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Estate planning is the work of leaving clear instructions in the right places. Wills, trusts, beneficiary designations, executor choices, healthcare directives, and the tax math behind each transfer all have to point the same way.
We coordinate the documents, the titling, and the beneficiary designations across the estate. Tax positioning, transfer timing, and alignment with retirement and investment accounts all get worked together. The plan stays current as the assets move, the family changes, and the law evolves.
The will, the revocable trust, any irrevocable trusts, the durable power of attorney, and the healthcare directive all have to read like one decision. When they conflict, the family inherits the conflict.
Beneficiary designations on retirement accounts and life insurance overrule the will. Asset titles — whether joint, sole, or trust-owned — determine what passes outside the estate. These have to line up with the rest of the plan, or the rest of the plan doesn't matter.
Estate tax exemptions span multiple years rather than collapsing at the end. Step-up basis gets preserved where it matters, generation-skipping exemptions reach the right beneficiaries, and gift-tax annual exclusions get used while they're available.
Estate documents are drafted by an estate attorney. We coordinate everything else: the titling of every account, the beneficiary designations on retirement and insurance, the tax positioning across transfers, the executor and trustee structures, and the family conversations when they're needed.
Before any document review, there's a real conversation about what brought you here. Often it's a new baby, kids reaching adulthood, an aging parent, a business sale on the horizon, a remarriage, or documents that haven't been touched since the kids were small. By the end you'll know whether this fits and what working together involves.
Most estate planning starts with what's already in place: documents signed years ago, trusts that exist on paper but never got funded, beneficiary forms still showing an ex-spouse or a deceased parent, or asset titles that don't match what the will assumes.
The plan gets built across documents, asset titling, beneficiary designations, and tax positioning together. The attorney handles drafting; the rest happens here. Trade-offs surface explicitly: gifting now to use exemption or holding for step-up later, trusts to control timing or outright bequests, joint ownership for convenience or trust ownership for protection.
Documents get signed and stored. Beneficiary forms get filed with every account that needs an update. Asset titles change where the plan requires. Trusts receive the assets they were structured to own.
Estate plans go stale in two ways. Life changes the picture: marriage, divorce, birth, death of a spouse, sale of a business, a child becoming a parent themselves. Or, law changes the math: exemption thresholds, gift-tax limits, state-level estate tax adoption or repeal. Each one reopens specific decisions in the plan.
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Estate planning is the relationship that lives longest. The senior advisor who built the plan knows the family, the assets, and the intent behind every decision. When the moment arrives, no one is meeting a stranger.
Our advisors keep concentrated client books so the senior advisor stays close to the family across every revision the plan needs. When a decision crosses into tax, investments, or retirement, the specialists are in-house and one conversation away.
Rob works with founders, executives, and families navigating concentrated wealth, business exits, and generational planning. He founded Arrowroot in 2013 and leads the firm from Southern California.
Cassandra works with clients on retirement planning and Medicare strategy, with deep expertise in healthcare cost planning and the tradeoffs that shape later-life decisions. She is a licensed insurance agent with more than 12 years in financial services.
Crystal works with individuals, families, and business owners on financial planning, investment management, and tax strategy. She is a CFP® and IRS Enrolled Agent with over two decades of experience.
Irene oversees operations and regulatory compliance across the firm. She brings more than 22 years of financial services experience across investments, capital markets, operations, management, and sales.
Mark works with families and business owners on financial planning, portfolio management, and tax strategy, with a particular focus on cash flow and long-range projections. He is a CFP® and IRS Enrolled Agent.
Diane works with individuals, families, executives, and retirees on retirement planning, investment strategy, and long-term wealth management. She is an Accredited Investment Fiduciary® with over 30 years of experience.
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Building a business creates a personal wealth situation the business itself won't manage. Concentration in the company, deferred compensation, an eventual exit, and the retirement that follows each carry their own math. Decisions on the company side get coordinated with the personal plan so the two sides move together.
Threads through every investment decision and every estate document. Tax efficiency depends on timing as much as choice. Decisions get made so the math holds up across decades rather than quarters.
Built around the obligations the portfolio has to meet. Holdings fund retirement income, education, gifting, and the unexpected on schedules that match real life. Risk gets calibrated to the work, and tax planning runs through every position.
At the center of cash flow, tax, and investment decisions, this long phase has its own math at every stage. Income, taxes, and sequence get modeled so the timeline holds up under stress. The work continues across every transition retirement contains, since one phase rarely sets the pattern for the next.
Touches every other practice the moment something changes. Estate, tax, and investment positions stay aligned so the structures still work when the time comes. Documents get revisited as the family and the assets shift.
Protects what's been built when something happens. Coverage gets sized to real exposure across business interests, dependents, and estate liquidity. As obligations shift, coverage shifts with them so the protection matches the situation.
Stock from your employer carries three identities at once: a tax position, an investment position, and a concentration risk. Vesting, exercise, sale, and AMT decisions get weighed together rather than separately. Timing of each gets coordinated against the broader picture.
Financial Planning is the practice that integrates the others into one plan. Tax decisions get made with investments in view, estate work gets shaped by the cash flow strategy, equity compensation gets calibrated against the rest of the picture. The plan holds together because one advisor guides it.
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Tell us where you are, where you're headed, and what you're working with. We'll help you get there.
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