Estate Planning
Practice area
Estate Planning
The best way to win an estate dispute is to prevent one. Mark Malachowski builds personalized estate plans that protect your assets, honor your wishes, and keep your family strong.
What this covers
How Mark helps with estate planning
Living trusts
Revocable trusts that let your assets pass to your family without probate.
Pour-over wills
A safety net that directs any stray assets into your trust.
Family limited partnerships
Structures that protect and transfer family wealth efficiently.
Asset & beneficiary planning
Coordinating titles and designations so the plan actually works.
Incapacity planning
Powers of attorney and directives for if you cannot act for yourself.
Dispute-resistant drafting
Plans drafted by a litigator to withstand a future challenge.
In depth
What estate planning involves
Protecting the legacy you built
You spent your life creating a legacy that you can be proud of, one that will help and protect your family throughout their lifetime. There comes a point in everyone’s life when an established legacy must be protected and secured through legal means.
Malachowski & Associates helps you form a customized and personalized estate plan. Individualized estate planning enables you to preserve the future harmony and overall strength of your family when you are no longer with them. We work hard to protect your assets while ensuring that beneficiaries receive precisely what the creator of the legacy intends.
The process
A clear path from first call to resolution
01
Discovery
We learn your family, your assets, and your wishes.
02
Design
We craft a plan tailored to your goals and built to resist disputes.
03
Execution & funding
We execute the documents and make sure the trust is actually funded.
Related viewing
All episodes Estate Planning on Law Talk TV
Estate Planning
The Huguette Clark, Frank Sinatra & Robin Williams Estates
Estate Planning
The Prince Estate, Part 2
Estate Planning FAQs
Questions clients ask
For many Bay Area families a revocable living trust avoids probate, which is public, slow, and based on the gross value of the estate. Most plans pair a trust with a pour-over will as a safety net.
Your assets pass under California’s intestate succession rules through probate, which decides who inherits and is public, slow, and costly. A plan keeps those decisions yours.
Yes. A plan drafted by a litigator who knows how contests are fought can close the gaps that challengers exploit, reducing the risk of a dispute.
Review it after major life events such as marriage, divorce, a birth, a death, a large change in assets, or a move, and periodically otherwise.
Yes. A complete plan includes powers of attorney and health-care directives so someone you trust can act if you become unable to.
Facing a estate planning matter?
Tell Mark what’s happening. You’ll get a straight read on your options and a clear next step.