Most clients with whom I meet with are well acquainted with the general benefits that a Revocable Trust can offer, including (i) providing a legal vehicle to avoid subjecting one's assets to a court guardianship proceeding should an incapacity event (illness, accident, etc.) occur, and (ii) avoiding the probate process, in the event of death.

However, clients are almost always very surprised and extremely interested in the provisions that can be inserted in one's Trust Agreement for the benefit of the client's children after he or she dies. All too often, Trust Agreements contain provisions which mandate that at the trust creator's death, assets in the trust are required to be distributed outright to his or her children, either all at once (when the trust creator dies) or in installments, at stated ages, such as one-third at age 25, one-half at age 30 and all at age 35.

In almost all cases, those mandatory outright trust distribution provisions should be replaced by provisions which create at the trust creator's death, continuing lifetime trust funds for the benefit of the trust creator's children. Such alternate approach will protect the inheritance that is left to the child from creditor claim risks that are all too often present in life, such as divorce events, lawsuits from car accidents, bad business deals, etc. - - without necessarily limiting the child's access to the trust assets during his or her continuing lifetime and without limiting how the child invests his or her inheritance under the umbrella of the trust.

In addition to the creditor protection benefits described above, continuing lifetime trusts for children and other heirs can also provide protection from estate taxes on both a federal and state level and should not be overlooked when working with your estate planner.