Practice Focus

Estate Planning, Trust Planning, Trust and Estate Administration, Business Succession Planning

Experience

Vera has over 25 years experience in planning and handling estates, trusts, and guardianships, and currently serves as chair of the firm's estate planning/estate and trust administration department.

Vera's experience includes:

• Assisting families to achieve their estate planning objectives with strategies to avoid or minimize federal estate, gift and generation-skipping taxes, and to eliminate or facilitate probate of an estate
• Counseling for and preparing appropriate wills, revocable and irrevocable trusts, disclaimers, special needs' trusts, life insurance trusts, powers of attorney, health care powers of attorney, living wills, contracts or other estate planning tools
• Utilizing trusts, family limited partnerships, or limited liability companies for the orderly and cost-effective succession or continuation of business interests
• Providing sophisticated planning through qualified personal residence trusts, grantor trusts, lifetime gifting, and disclaimer trusts
• Planning through use of charitable remainder and unitrusts
• Handling probate and trust administration to ensure prudent management and the efficient disposition of estates, trusts and guardianships
• Litigating will and trust contests and various other matters in N.H. courts

Practice Areas

• Estate and Trust Planning
• Real Estate

Professional Activities

• Member, New Hampshire Bar Association. Section: Elder Law
• Member, New Hampshire Estate Planning Council
• Member, American Bar Association. Section: Real Property, Probate and Trust Section

Honors and Distinctions

Presenter, New Hampshire Probate Judges' Conference

Member, Probate Committee for Study Insolvent Estate Legislation

Community Involvement

• Trustee, Concord Regional Visiting Nurse Association
• Trustee, New Hampshire Legal Assistance
• Chair, Finance Council, St. Peter's Parish Concord
• Secretary, Beaver Meadow Ladies' Golf League

Bar Admissions

Vera is admitted to practice in the state courts in New Hampshire and the Federal District Court in New Hampshire.

Education

New York University, B.A. Mathematics, 1972; University of New Hampshire Law School (formerly Franklin Pierce Law Center), J.D., 1982; Boston University, L.L.M., Taxation, 1983