Trust Administration

Dependable Probate Counsel in the District of Columbia, Virginia and Maryland

With 26 years of estate administration experience in Washington, D.C. and both sides of the Potomac, Alexandria probate attorney Elizabeth Pirsch offers her clients sound advice, efficient service and prompt answers to their questions. Contact Pirsch & Associates to learn how her detailed understanding of estate administration processes in three jurisdictions can help you and your family.

Understanding Probate Rules and Practices Can Save You Time and Money

Although the specific rules and procedures differ a great deal among the District of Columbia, Virginia and Maryland, they share the common feature of rewarding people who know how to apply them. Especially in the District of Columbia and Maryland, where the completion of a particular probate task by a given date will allow you to skip certain expensive and time-consuming steps, you can measure the benefit of skilled probate advice in time and money.

Our firm’s experience with estate administration and probate means that we know how to discharge the duties of an executor or personal representative with an eye on accuracy and efficiency. Our familiarity with probate practices in Virginia, Maryland and the District means that you can protect the value of the estate for distribution rather than undoing errors or having to perform tasks that could have been avoided.

We help our estate administration clients with such processes and details as:

• Probate of the last will and testament
• Notice to heirs, beneficiaries and creditors
• Estate or trust federal and state tax returns
• Estate or trust federal and state income tax returns
• Decedent’s income tax returns
• Preparation of inventories, accountings and reports as necessary
• Evaluation of claims against the estate and the priority of their payment under state law
• Distribution of assets of the estate

For out-of-state Virginia personal representatives, executors and trustees, we can serve as your Virginia cofiduciary to allow you to serve without a bond, as well as assist you in discharging your duties. We also handle trusts and estates for out-of-state clients in Maryland and the District of Columbia.

Our attentive and efficient service not only helps you wind up an estate or satisfy your duties as a trustee, it can help head off disputes and even protect you from liability. To learn more about our trust and estate administration practice, contact an experienced lawyer at Pirsch & Associates in Alexandria.

Probate Litigation

We Represent Clients in Will Contests and Trust Litigation

As a seasoned probate practitioner with 26 years of experience, Elizabeth Pirsch knows how to investigate, analyze and present your probate litigation claims or defenses in the terms most likely to achieve the desired result. If you need advice about your rights under the terms of a will or trust, about your duties as a fiduciary, or about the performance of a trustee or guardian, contact an experienced lawyer at Pirsch & Associates in Alexandria.

We Can Help Heirs, Beneficiaries, Trustees, Executors or Other Parties

We have successfully handled probate litigation involving estates as large as $30 million, but we can also advise and represent people with interests on either side of smaller trust or estate disputes. Examples of the kinds of cases we can handle include:

• Will contests
• Competency or undue influence disputes
• Gift disputes
• Forfeiture clauses under a decedent’s will
• Trust litigation
• Guardianship and Conservatorship petitions
• Breach of fiduciary duty claims
• Title and valuation problems with respect to particular assets
• Attempts to break a trust for distribution of assets to a beneficiary
• Misappropriation or fraud claims against a guardian, trustee or executor
• State or federal IRS tax claims against a trust or estate

Whether your probate dispute involves interpreting the terms of a contested will or challenging the performance of a guardian, our attorneys can advise you about the strength of your case, the time and expense necessary to resolve the dispute, and the suitability of such alternative dispute resolution techniques as mediation or arbitration for your case.

If there’s a way to achieve your objectives without resorting to litigation or damaging strained family relationships further, we’ll advise you accordingly. If we need to present your case in court, however, our firm’s focus on probate law can give you a definite advantage.

We Represent Clients in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C.

No matter where your dispute will be heard, you can count on Pirsch & Associates for sound advice and skilled advocacy across the entire range of probate litigation. For additional information, contact our office in Alexandria.

Income & IRS Tax Audits

Advice for Businesses and Families Facing an IRS Audit

Alexandria tax attorney Elizabeth Pirsch advises and represents individuals, families, businesses and nonprofit organizations that face the risk of tax liability through an IRS audit. Licensed to practice in U.S. Tax Court, Ms. Pirsch earned an LL.M in Taxation from Georgetown, and uses her detailed knowledge of tax law and procedure to protect your interests. Contact Pirsch & Associates to learn how she can help resolve your problem on favorable terms.

We Represent Tax Payers in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C.

Our law firm can analyze your situation, identify the issues and provide dependable advice about your options for resolving your tax liability. In most cases, we’ll work with the IRS collections office to settle your tax liability or to work out a repayment plan that you can live with. When our investigation shows that you have legitimate grounds for disputing an assessment or contesting a delinquency, we’ll take the necessary steps to make sure that your side of the story is heard and considered by filing an appeal with the U.S. Tax Court.

We help people and businesses with IRS audit problems in such situations as the following:

• Unpaid income taxes
• Sales tax or employment tax delinquencies
• Responsible person liability for unpaid payroll taxes
• Innocent spouse defense to personal income tax liability
• Tax problems involving trusts or estates

Our lawyers also represent clients facing Virginia or Maryland state tax problems based on the results of an IRS audit. For additional information about the scope of our tax practice, contact an attorney at Pirsch & Associates in Alexandria.

Income Tax Planning

How Can Gift, Estate and Income Tax Planning Benefit My Family?

Although the tax aspects of estate planning are most often associated with affluent families holding assets in excess of the federal estate tax exemption, you don’t have to be rich to benefit from careful consideration of the tax consequences of your estate plan. To learn how gift, estate and income tax planning can advance important objectives for you and your family, contact an experienced lawyer at Pirsch & Associates in Alexandria.

We Serve Clients in Northern Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C.

Gift, estate and income tax planning often work in conjunction with other estate planning goals: avoiding probate, protecting Medicaid eligibility, providing for the care or education of minors, or maximizing your use of the federal tax exemption by leveraging its use through estate tax planning devices. For affluent families, gift planning and irrevocable trust devices are essential tools for transferring assets out of your estate and insulating them from estate tax liability.

For families of more modest means, a revocable trust supplemented with other devices can maximize the value of federal tax exemptions while protecting your future access to Medicaid benefits.

Trusts and estates attorney Elizabeth Pirsch has helped families solve complex gift and tax planning problems since 1983. With an LL.M in Taxation from Georgetown University, she brings a sophisticated approach to your situation while explaining your options in clear and practical terms.

Your family estate plan might benefit from the use of any of the following instruments and strategies, depending on your specific circumstances:

• Revocable trust
• Irrevocable life insurance trust
• Section 529 tuition savings plan
• Periodic gifts to adult children or into trust for minors during your lifetime
• Special needs trusts to secure the care of vulnerable persons or those with disabilities
• Credit shelter trusts to extend the benefit of the federal tax exemption
• Charitable lead and remainder trusts
• Qualified residence trust
• Qualified annuity trust

Because federal tax laws, IRS regulations and family circumstances change from time to time, it’s a good idea to review any estate plan every four or five years to make sure that it still meets your needs and whenever a significant life changing event occurs (i.e. a death, divorce or birth). To learn more about our ability to incorporate gift, tax and special needs planning into your estate plan, contact Pirsch & Associates in Alexandria.

Estate Planning

Experienced Estate Planning Advice in Metro Washington

At Pirsch & Associates, our expert estate planning lawyer help families in the District of Columbia, Northern Virginia and Maryland with the decisions that can prove essential to a smooth transfer of assets from one generation to the next. Our trusts and estates attorney advice can also help you anticipate and plan for the best ways of dealing with the challenges of old age, including all the problems associated with diminished mental capacity.

Contact an experienced estate planning lawyer at our office in Alexandria to learn how our trusts and estates attorney can help you assemble a basic estate plan or advise you about problems unique to your situation. Elizabeth Pirsch has worked with individuals, families and small businesses on both sides of the Potomac since 1983. Her solutions can save you and your family time, money, stress, confusion and conflict.

Basic Estate Plans Include a Will and Powers of Attorney

While most people understand that a last will and testament is the most common way to document their wishes as to the transfer of assets after death, they often use other methods outside their last wills and testaments to transfer assets. No matter whom a last will and testament designates as a beneficiary, a jointly titled asset passes to the surviving joint owner or to the designated beneficiary. Our trusts and estates attorney attention to detail in the titling and type of your asset in the preparation of your will can help make sure that there will be no confusion as to who inherits what assets after you’re gone.

Powers of Attorney Can Protect You and Your Family in Emergencies

If a serious accident or incapacitating illness renders you suddenly incapable of managing your own affairs or expressing your own decisions, your interests can be protected through financial and health care powers of attorney. We also recommend the appointment of an agent for medical purposes to advise doctors in the event of a medical emergency and you are unable to voice your preference for medical care.

These instruments specify trusted persons to act in your place under defined circumstances and within certain limits. They can save your family from disagreements as to what your intentions might have been, and can even avoid the need to seek appointment of a guardian to protect you.

There’s no escaping the fact that many people outlive their sound judgment, and it’s common for elderly people to find themselves vulnerable to exploitation, abuse or neglect. A sound estate planning anticipates the possibility that you might need some extra help later on, and our expert trusts and estates attorney helps you to plan for those needs on your own terms.

Preparation for Estate Planning for People Interested in Avoiding Probate

Our estate planning practice can advise you about revocable trust packages with powers of attorney, which can essentially replace the last will and testament as a way to transfer wealth. A revocable trust has the added advantage of helping you bypass the probate process and its related expenses.

Our trusts and estates attorney also help people with special needs trusts, gift and tax planning advice, irrevocable trusts and the full range of elder law services. To learn more about our estate planning practice, contact Pirsch & Associates in Alexandria, Virginia.

Elder Law Attorney

Turn to an Experienced Elder Law Resource in Alexandria

As our society grows older, the need for comprehensive advice about the legal objectives of senior citizens grows more important. The relatively new field of elder law attorney combines experience in estate planning, disability planning, tax law and probate to help older people enjoy their retirement with the greatest possible comfort and security.

Contact Pirsch & Associates in Alexandria to learn how the advice of an experienced elder law attorney can help you and your family meet the practical challenges that old age can present.

Middle-Aged People Stand to Benefit Most From Early Elder Law Advice

Once you start approaching the age of 60, you’re old enough to visualize some of the hard realities and expenses that old age might throw at you. You might well have an elderly parent living through the same challenges. Middle age is an excellent time to start addressing your own elder law attorney needs. You’re starting to understand what they might involve, and you’re young enough to have plenty of options for dealing with them.

Will You Be Eligible for Medicaid for Long Term Care?

Medicaid is a means-tested benefit that’s well worth planning for. If your net worth exceeds, say, $8-10 million, you probably don’t need to protect your Medicaid eligibility, because you’ll be able to afford whatever you might eventually require in terms of long term care if you are too disabled to care for yourself.

If you are in the middle class, however, worth perhaps several million or less, you might later find yourself in the awkward situation of ineligibility for Medicaid while facing annual care expenses of $150,000 or more — probably more than you can comfortably afford.

If you are worried about paying for longer term care for Medicaid planning while you’re in good health can help you transfer assets outside of the five-year IRS look back period for any transfers outright or into trust. Sound Medicaid planning can help most families take full advantage of the success they achieved during their working years.

Advice About Guardianships and Conservatorships, How to Avoid Them and When to Use Them

Sooner or later, everyone gets old. People fortunate enough to have avoided cancer or heart disease grow increasing vulnerable to stroke, dementia or the loss of responsible judgment as they grow older. Elder law attorney Elizabeth Pirsch can advise families with an elderly parent about the guardianship process and how it can protect vulnerable people in areas from asset management to physical care.

Sound estate planning can often avoid the need for guardianship and conservatorship proceedings in probate court, but sometimes it’s hard to tell when you need to intervene for the protection of an older loved one with declining faculties. In some cases, a legal finding of incompetence might be the only way to protect a vulnerable parent. Our advice can help you find the answer to this difficult decision.

For dependable elder law attorney advice, estate planning, or guardianship, contact an experienced lawyer at Pirsch & Associates in Alexandria, Virginia.

Virginia Divorce Lawyers

Protecting Your Interests in Virginia Divorce Lawyers Mediation & Online Help

If you’re considering divorce in Northern Virginia, or if you have been served with a divorce summons or property settlement agreement (PSA) during a period of separation, you stand to benefit from the advice of a lawyer who can guide you toward sound decisions based on a solid understanding of your rights and responsibilities.

Contact a family law attorney at Pirsch & Associates in Alexandria to get the advice you need about such issues as:

• Contested and uncontested divorce under Virginia law
• Negotiation, documentation and enforcement of a PSA
• Complex property division or marital property characterization issues
• Child custody and visitation or parenting time disputes, including emergency custody motions
• Alimony or spousal support
• Enforcement or modification of divorce and support decrees

Our divorce practice is handled primarily by Virginia family law attorney Shelly Collette. She combines a level-headed and practical approach to your situation with a determined and aggressive litigation style that can protect or advance your interests in court as necessary.

Although child support issues are generally determined according to fairly inflexible child support guidelines, most other divorce issues are highly sensitive both to the facts of the case and to the discretion of the judge. Our ability to analyze the facts of your situation in light of how a particular judge decided in the past helps our clients both in court and in negotiated settlements.

We Also Handle the Full Range of Other Family Law Issues

As well as representing people in Virginia divorce cases, we also provide counsel in other family law matters ranging from paternity and the rights of unmarried parents to stepparent adoption to the enforcement of protective orders in domestic violence cases.

To learn more about the scope of our virginia divorce lawyers & family law practice and our ability to help you through a difficult transition in your life, contact Pirsch & Associates in Alexandria.

Criminal Defense Attorney

At Pirsch & Associates in Alexandria, we help criminal defense clients avoid the consequences of an arrest or conviction on serious charges ranging from DUI or DWI to felony assault or sex offenses. To learn how our criminal defense attorney can protect your rights while attacking the case against you, contact our office to schedule a consultation.

Criminal trial lawyer Shelly Collette handles most of our law firm’s felony and misdemeanor defense work. With previous experience at the Commonwealth Attorney’s Office in Fairfax County, she has a good idea of how prosecutors and law enforcement officers think.

We Build Up Your Defense by Finding the Weaknesses in Your Case

She uses this experience and understanding to develop your defense and take full advantage of the reasons why a prosecutor might not want to pursue your case to trial.

Most criminal cases have weaknesses of fact or law that the government hopes criminal defense lawyer won’t spot. These weaknesses might include anything from credibility problems with their own witnesses to serious defects in an arrest or search and seizure. Once criminal defense associates identify the issues that can work in your favor, our criminal defense attorney use it to your benefit.

That’s how we can plead a felony charge down to a misdemeanor, win a sentence of probation on a felony conviction, or stipulate to dismissal of the charges if you can stay out of trouble for a certain length of time.

We can’t predict the outcome of your case, but we can assure you of our virginia criminal defense attorney’s best efforts to find a favorable way of resolving it. Whenever your interests will be served best by presenting your defense to a judge or jury, our criminal defense law firm lawyer won’t hesitate to take your case to trial.

Our criminal defense practice covers such Virginia offenses as the following:

• Felony or misdemeanor assault
• Domestic violence or battery
• Statutory rape and other sex crimes
• Property crimes such as auto theft or robbery
• Weapons offenses
• First offense or repeat DUI cases, including felony drunk driving or hit and run charges
• Traffic offenses and drivers’ license suspension problems

Our law firm can usually quote you a flat fee in a criminal defense case, which can even include the cost of trial if we can’t resolve the case on satisfactory terms otherwise.

To learn more about our experience with the criminal law and the nature of our defense practice, contact Pirsch & Associates in Alexandria.

The business attorneys at Pirsch & Associates provide one-stop service for small and midsized businesses on a wide range of issues from initial formation to contract documentation and litigation. Advising and representing not-for-profit entities also forms an important part of our business practice. For more information about our ability to serve your needs, contact our office in Alexandria.

We Counsel Business Clients in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C.

With 26 years of experience and an LL.M in Taxation from Georgetown, Elizabeth Pirsch understands how to guide both new and established businesses past the procedural hurdles of initial formation, structural changes or disputes.

Additionally, she can help with strategic business planning, tax planning and compliance, and the documentation of your customer and vendor contracts. As an experienced lawyer, she can also protect your interests whenever litigation appears necessary to enforce contract rights or resolve corporate governance problems.

Your business can benefit from our law firm’s experience and advice in any of the following areas:

• Business entity selection, formation and registration
• Documentation of operating agreements, shareholder agreements, buy-sell agreements, bylaws and other essential instruments that define the rights and responsibilities of your partnership or equity group
• Advice for professional practice groups, government contractors and other specialized businesses
• Documentation and regulatory compliance for employee benefit plans
• Negotiation and preparation of noncompete agreements, trade secret or confidentiality agreements, and nonsolicitation covenants
• Advice about business licenses, tax accounting systems, compliance and reporting issues, and preserving the tax benefits of your separate business entity
• Mergers, acquisitions or the sale of businesses or business assets
• Management succession planning, especially as a feature of estate planning for family-owned businesses
• Litigation, mediation or arbitration of commercial, partnership or corporate disputes

We Also Form and Serve as Counsel to Nonprofits

At Pirsch & Associates, we’re proud of our willingness and ability to work with nonprofit organizations of all sizes and levels of sophistication. We can help with everything from forming the initial organization to the qualification and protection of your tax-exempt status as a charitable organization, business league, or other nonprofit. We also advise nonprofits about meeting the legal challenges presented by periods of rapid growth or contraction, membership disputes, or conflicts between an organization’s board, its executive and/or its volunteers.

For additional information about the scope of our experience with business formation, transactions and litigation, contact a knowledgeable lawyer at Pirsch & Associates in Alexandria.

Business Formation Lawyer

Business formation is very tangled task. To start and operate a business organization includes many important decisions and most vital decision covers, shaping the most excellent category of unit to utilize. Acknowledging the profit and losses of the diverse possible alternatives in business formation may be a tricky and compound matter. It’s essential to determine if you want to form a Limited Liability Company, Partnership or Sole Business Pirsch & Associates, PLLC may help you finding which configuration suites best for your condition. We may suggest you one the following entities depending upon your business goals-

• partnership
• sole proprietorship
• S-corporation
• C-corporation
• limited liability partnership (LLP)
• limited liability corporation (LLC)

Legal arrangements are very severe for a business whether corporation, partnership or sole proprietorship. A consultation from a business formation lawyer is really important. Starting a business lacking the suitable structures can lead toward huge loss and unfavorable legal implications. Often people think, it covers only preparing forms and sending them to the desk of Secretary of State. But actually it is more than that, because that is just the commencement of the long process. Company should execute other important proceedings so to be justifiable in shielding the entity beside creditors. Pirsch & Associates, PLLC assist its clients through our experienced and skilled business formation lawyers to build a corporate shield. We believe it as a spot light objective of our company to save each shareholder & officer of our client from liabilities coming from its Creditors. The corporate Shield can be cracked, if the company is not formed properly.

The most central observation in commencing a big business is to understand the limitation of the proprietor’s liability and calculation of tax cost. Business formation lawyer of Pirsch & Associates, PLLC will outline all legal papers to assemble the requirements of your business, sketch the duty and tax implications in addition to shield you from the creditors of the project. Once the process of business formation is done and the entity of business is formed, Pirsch & Associates, PLLC will recommend you also, in the process of the business to make sure that the obtainable remunerations are not missed by your selected entity. Pirsch & Associates, PLLC helps personnel, business organizations, limited liability companies and also corporations in the process of business formation with all possible efforts. We deal in helping experienced proprietors as well as those who are incorporating business for the very first time, because our system is very easy to pursue.

Business formation lawyer of Pirsch & Associates, PLLC also achieve the promise by bonding an unending relationship with our clients. We also assist and help them on a range of issues concerning business formation. This means, Pirsch & Associates, PLLC understands its role not only in commencement of the business but also in helping our clients throughout the complete route of their business. Pirsch & Associates, PLLC design defensive steps to fully protect our client’s interest by explaining them the heads and tails of business formation law because we truly believe the famous quote by PLATO – “No law or ordinance is mightier than understanding.