If you've made it to a comfortable time in life where you've accumulated some wealth and enough wisdom to know that other things matter, too, this is the time to reflect on what you want your legacy to be. But you may well live another 30 or 40 years, so there's no need to obsess about it. Chances are your conclusions will be different in ten or twenty years, and your estate plan will change accordingly. So here are several considerations.

1. Avoiding Probate To save your family the cost (and hassles) of probate court proceedings after your death, consider creating a revocable living trust. It's hardly more trouble than writing a will and lets everything go directly to your heirs, bypassing probate court. While you're alive the trust has no effect, and you can revoke it or change at any time. But after your death, trust property can be transferred quickly, according to the directions you left in the trust document. There are other, even easier ways to avoid probate: You can turn any bank account into a "payable-on-death" account simply by signing a form from the bank and naming someone to inherit whatever funds are in the account at your death. You can do the same thing, in almost every state, with securities.
2. Avoiding taxes If you have enough property to worry about federal estate taxes, consider how much you want to pay in taxes to Uncle Sam and the state. The amount of tax that will be owed by your estate is a changing number due to frequent revisions by state and federal lawmakers. Documents prepared by this firm will reflect current tax codes. One way to reduce these taxes is to give away property before your death. If you don't own it, it can't be taxed. An annual gift-giving plan can reduce the size of even a big estate, especially if you have a covey of kids and grandkids. Gifts to your spouse (as long as he or she is a U.S. citizen), direct payment of tuition or medical bills, and gifts to a tax-exempt organization are exempt from gift tax. Keep in mind that annual gifts larger than the current deduction per recipient are subject to gift tax at the same rate as estate tax. Another way to cut taxes is with trusts. Many older couples use an AB trust to leave property to each other for life, and then to their children. The surviving spouse can spend trust income and, in some circumstances, principal. An AB trust can shield up to twice the exempt amount from estate tax. Charitable trusts, which involve making a gift to a charity and getting some payments back, can also save on both estate and income tax. There are many other complex trusts; learn about them on your own and then have an experienced estate planning lawyer draw up the documents you want.
3. Directive to Physicians This legal document tells medical professionals what treatment you want in specific critical situations. The directive form custom-designed by Lynda McMaken received high praise from the Mayo Clinic, where doctors called it, “the best they'd seen.”