Top Best Estate Lawyers | 18197 Available

Lela is committed to helping parents make the best legal decisions for their families. As a Personal Family Lawyer, in association with the Family Wealth Institute, Lela develops lifelong relationships with her clients, serving as a trusted advisor to them and their families. Along with helping her clients to make a smooth transfer of their assets, Lela also carefully guides her clients in handing down their intangible assets, including their values, insights, stories and experiences.. Lela received her law degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, before practicing at a small firm in San Francisco. Eager to bring more heart to her law practice and make a greater difference in her clients’ lives, Lela opened her own estate planning practice, where she is able to be the client-oriented attorney she has long dreamed of being.. When Lela is not busy practicing law, she enjoys spending time with her family and friends, hiking, watching movies, reading, and traveling.

Daniela Lungu, founder of the Law Offices of Daniela Lungu, devotes her law practice to asset protection through estate and business planning. Ms. Lungu’s goal is to provide the people of the Bay Area and California with the highest quality, and most personalized legal services possible. Her attention to detail and a high level of communication with her clientele distinguish her from other attorneys in the field.

Crystal R. Bush is an attorney practicing in the Chicagoland area.  She concentrates her practice in the areas of estate planning, probate, corporate and business law, commercial and residential real estate and family law.. Crystal is also an adjunct professor at Harper College where she teaches probate and commercial real estate law.  She has also taught estate planning and family law. Crystal is a member of the Northwest Suburban Bar Association where she authors the New & Noteworthy column for the monthly newsbrief.  Crystal is a volunteer at Chicago Volunteer legal Services where she serves as a guardian ad litem for minors.. Crystal is an active speaker and recently presented a topic on "Money, Marriage, Taxes and Divorce" to the Northwest Suburban Bar Association Tax Law Committee. She has also presented numerous seminars to organizations such as AT&T, the Chicago Bar Association, North Shore Community Bank & Trust, South Suburban Bank, Hull House, Women Employed, the Chicago Chapter of Society of Women aAccountants, the Black MBA Association and the Chicago Chapter of the Association of Minority Engineers.  She has published several articles on financial planning, was featured in an article in the Chicago Daily Law Bullentin and has appeare several times as a guest financial expert on Minority Business Report.. Very active in community service she is a past member of the Chicago Bar Association where she served as a Directory of the Young Lawyers Section and served on the long-range planning committee.  She is a past co-chair of the Young Lawyers Section Client Development and Firm Economics committee and is a past legislative liason for the Young Lawyers section Estate Planning Committee.  She is a past member of State Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka's Business Leader's Roundtable, a past treasurer for the League of Black Women.  She has received numerous rewards including an award for exceptional contribution for her presentation of a series of financial workshops at AT&T's Synergy in Action Conference.

As an estate planning attorney, David consults with individuals regarding their estate planning and estate administration needs, including business succession planning, leveraged gift giving, philanthropic goals and the structuring of estate planning documents. He has extensive experience – including more than 16 years as a practicing attorney – with tax compliance issues affecting trusts and estates and the preparation of both simple and complex federal estate and gift tax returns, fiduciary income tax returns, and various postmortem tax issues. Among his accomplishments, David:. Used a little-known provision in the Internal Revenue Code to help a family avoid the loss of a family farm due to the imposition of federal and state estate taxes. David helped structure a payment plan that not only allowed the farm to remain in the family, but helped the family avoid further indebtedness that may have resulted from procuring further financing to pay the estate taxes.. Through careful research of the IRS regulations, David restructured the payout terms of a decedent’s IRA that was left to his surviving spouse under a defective beneficiary designation. Through David’s assistance, the surviving spouse was allowed to rollover the money and defer income taxes, rather than pay significant income taxes as a result of the defective beneficiary designation.. Administered both smaller and larger estates ensuring proper accounting methods, distributions, tax compliance and income tax planning.. Employed estate planning techniques such as gift giving, charitable planned giving, family limited partnerships, life insurance programs and trusts, to save clients from the imposition of unnecessary federal and state estate taxes.. In addition to having established his own law practice, David was the former Director of Estate Planning for the accounting and consulting firm of Frost Ruttenberg & Rothblatt (FR&R), a 130+ member firm located in Deerfield, Illinois. He is a graduate of the accounting program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (one of the highest regarded accounting schools in the United States). In addition to being a CPA, David is a licensed attorney and received his Master’s in Law (LL.M. in taxation) degree at DePaul University College of Law. David is a former speaker for the Illinois CPA Society and a former chairman of the Chicago Bar Association's Estate Planning Committee for the Young Lawyer's Division. Currently, David is a member of the Chicago Bar Association's Probate Practice Committee, Estate Planning and Trust Law Committee, and Federal Taxation Committee. He is also a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Illinois CPA Society, the North Shore Estate Planning Council, the Northwest Suburban Bar Association Estate Planning Committee, the Lake County, Illinois, Estate Planning Council, and the National Association of Elder Law Attorneys. David is also a member of the Skokie Chamber of Commerce and the Wilmette Chamber of Commerce.