Cumberland Legacy Law* provides the highest quality Estate Planning for clients in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Oregon and Tennessee. Whether you need a sophisticated strategy for minimizing or avoiding estate taxes and providing maximum possible asset protection, or just a simple will or trust to ensure your assets are distributed in accordance with your wishes, or anything in between, we are here to help you and your loved ones.
We present seminars on a variety of Estate Planning and Elder Law topics; call us if you want to be on our seminar mailing list, or subscribe to our newsletter by jotting a quick note to us.
Nina Whitehurst, the owner of Cumberland Legacy Law, is a member of Wealth Counsel, Elder Counsel and the National Association of Elder Law Attorneys, all national estate planning attorney organizations. She is continually upgrading and updating her knowledge of estate planning law through seminars and being an active member of several estate planning attorney email list serves. Her husband, Brian Whitehurst, is the firm's marketing coordinator. Nina Lamothe is the firm's documentation paralegal.
*Cumberland Legacy Law is not a public legal aid society.
- Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, Arizona State University
- J.D. (1986) | Law
- Honors: summa cum laude
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- Arizona State University
- B.S. (1983) | Accounting
- Honors: summa cum laude
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Rates, Retainers and Additional Information
No legal advice is provided prior to engagement. You will know when you have engaged an attorney because you will have signed a fee agreement and will have provided a deposit for legal fees.
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- Q. Pay $13.000 + 4.000.00 retainer fee to be belittled by your lawyer and in front of his peers. Is this common practice?
- A: Your perspective on this may or may not be skewed. One way to find out would be to obtain a second opinion from another attorney. This forum is not a way of obtaining a second opinion. For that you would need to consult an individual attorney and provide ALL of the background information and chronology. Expect to pay a reasonable consultation fee because this will probably require at least a couple hours of attorney time, maybe more.
Also, you always have the right to fire your attorney. Chances are you will be entitled to a refund for the unused portion of your deposit, but that depends on the precise wording of the engagement letter/agreement. A second attorney can also give you advice ... Read More
- Q. I am beneficiary of my mother's bank account. She died without a will. Her assets are less than 185000. My sister took
- A: Ownership of decedent’s property does not pass automatically. Some kind of legal process is required. In your case it is possible that you can use a small estate affidavit to pass title to all assets to the heirs at law. If your mom was single when she died and survived by two living children and no predeceased children then the two living children would be the heirs at law.
- Q. My parents are married, own a home in Puerto Rico and were told they had to make two individual wills. Is this correct?
- A: A "living will" is an advance directive that expresses one's wishes with respect to end of life medical decisions. My guess is what you meant to write was "last will and testament" or simply "will". It is very uncommon for a married couple to make a joint will (one will signed by both). It is way more common for each to make his or her own will. But sometimes a will is not the instrument best suited to the situation. Sometimes a trust is better. Your parents should schedule a consultation with an estate planning attorney to help them develop a comprehensive estate plan that is best suited to their situation. Blended families sometimes call for more sophisticated ... Read More
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