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Aging and incapacity affect everyone at some point in life. At Finley Williams Law, PA, we provide compassionate guidance and value-driven solutions in the areas of estate planning, elder law, guardianship, probate, Medicaid planning, Veterans benefit planning, and Veterans disability appeals.

Why Is Estate Planning Important?   Without a proper estate plan, the decisions regarding who will distribute your assets once you have passed away and who will receive your assets will be left to the court. Setting up your estate plan can give you and your family peace of mind.

Planning for Long-Term Care Needs - Medicaid planning utilizes strategies that are designed to manage assets and income in a way that allows the individual to qualify for Medicaid for long-term care (assisted living or nursing home care). This allows individuals to preserve assets to help pay for aspects of their care that may not be covered by insurance or government benefits. Veterans Aid & Attendance benefits may also be available for elderly individuals who are a veteran or the spouse of a veteran and require assistance with activities of daily living. 

Guardianship – If guardianship cannot be avoided through proper estate planning, our office can help you and your family navigate the complexities of ensuring your loved one has proper decision-makers in place through the court guardianship process. We represent both family guardians and professional guardians in our practice. Melissa Williams also serves as a court appointed attorney for alleged incapacitated persons in Pinellas County, Manatee County, and Sarasota County. She takes her role as a court appointed attorney very seriously and zealously advocates for each of the alleged incapacitated persons that she is appointed to represent, no matter their ability to pay for her services.

Probate & Trust Administration - If a person dies with assets in their individual name, those assets will need to go through the court process called probate. Probate is used by the court to appoint the personal representative of an estate and direct how the deceased person’s assets should be distributed. Our office represents proposed personal representatives as well as estate beneficiaries in probate matters. We also represent successor trustees and provide advice and guidance on how to properly distribute trust estates to the intended beneficiaries.

Veterans Disability Appeals - You or your loved one provided our country with years of service and the very least the country can do is honor the benefits that you assumed you could count on. If your claim for veterans benefits for service-connected disability has been denied, can help with your appeal. Attorney Melissa Williams is a VA Accredited Attorney and handles these cases on a contingency basis. This means that our office only gets paid on VA disability appeals cases if we win your case and you receive back-payment from the VA.