Miami estate counsel
Written once. Read for a generation.
Wills, trusts and the instruments around them, drawn precisely for Florida families and for families whose lives cross borders — in language your heirs will not have to litigate.
Some documents deserve the time to be exact. We plan estates quietly and precisely, so that what you decided is what happens — by the fact itself.
The work
What we draw and administer
Wills and revocable trusts
Core instruments drafted to Florida’s formalities, with homestead handled correctly from the start.
Probate and trust administration
Steering estates through Miami-Dade probate, including ancillary administration for non-resident decedents.
International and cross-border planning
Coordinating assets and heirs across jurisdictions — Latin America, Europe and Canada in particular.
Powers of attorney and health-care directives
The documents that speak for you while you are living, drawn so they are honored when presented.
Estate and gift tax planning
Structures that carry wealth across generations deliberately, with the tax consequences measured first.
Business succession
Passing a family enterprise intact: governance, buy-sell terms and the timing that keeps it working.
From our clients
Said quietly, meant entirely
“Everything was explained once, clearly, and then it was simply done. My parents’ estate settled without a single surprise.”
“We live in three countries. Our plan reads as if that were the most ordinary thing in the world.”
Not verdicts — tenure
The measure of the practice
- of Florida trusts and estates practice
- 22 years
- counsel in English, Spanish and Portuguese
- 3 languages
- board certified in Wills, Trusts & Estates, The Florida Bar
- Since 2010
Considered answers
Questions worth asking well
Do I need a trust, or is a will enough?
It depends on what you own and where. A will alone means probate; a funded revocable trust usually avoids it. Florida homestead and out-of-state property change the answer, so we start there.
What makes Florida homestead different?
Florida restricts how a homestead can be devised when there is a surviving spouse or minor child, and protects it from most creditors. Plans written elsewhere often get this wrong; it is the first thing we check.
What happens to Florida property owned by someone who lived abroad?
It generally requires ancillary administration in Florida even if the estate is being handled elsewhere. Planned ahead, that process can be shortened or avoided entirely.
How long does probate take in Miami-Dade?
A straightforward formal administration commonly runs several months to a year; summary administration for small estates is faster. Litigation or non-resident complications extend it — and are usually avoidable with planning.
How often should documents be reviewed?
On any significant life event — marriage, divorce, a birth, a death, a move between states or countries — and otherwise every three to five years, because the law does not stand still.
Who drafts, signs and stays
Your counsel
Elinor Story
Senior counsel
Elinor has practised trusts and estates in Miami for twenty-two years and is board certified in Wills, Trusts & Estates by The Florida Bar. She advises families in English, Spanish and Portuguese, and much of her work never sees a courtroom — which is the point.
Speaks English and Spanish and Portuguese.
James Kent
Counsel, probate and administration
James leads the firm’s probate and trust administration practice. In fifteen years at the Miami-Dade probate bar he has administered estates from single-homestead successions to multi-jurisdiction families with assets on three continents. He is admitted in Florida and known for closing files without drama.
Conversation to stewardship
How an estate plan comes together
A first conversation
Unhurried and confidential: what you hold, whom you hold it for, and where the law will have opinions. No documents are drafted until the intent is exact.
Design
The architecture of the plan — wills, trusts, powers, beneficiary designations — mapped in plain language before a word of legal drafting begins.
Signing
Executed to Florida’s formalities, witnessed and notarized properly, with originals stored and copies where your family will find them.
Stewardship
Reviews on life events and every few years, so the plan keeps pace with your family, your assets and the law.
Visit
Find us on Biscayne Boulevard
Address
Southeast Financial Center200 S Biscayne Blvd, Suite 3450Miami, FL 33131USHours
- Monday–Friday: 09:00–17:00