This guide covers estate planning from the first intake conversation through the maintenance schedule that keeps a plan current. It begins with the framework that organizes everything else — the distinction between probate and non-probate transfers, and the fact that a will governs only what has nowhere else to go. Chapters then cover will drafting and execution formalities, the revocable trust and the funding work that makes it real, beneficiary designations and the ERISA rules that override state law, and the incapacity documents that get used more often than the death documents. Later chapters address specialized trusts for minors, beneficiaries with disabilities, blended families, and spendthrifts; the federal transfer tax system and the basis rules that matter far more to most families; state estate and inheritance taxes; disclaimers and other post-death planning; fiduciary selection; will contests and the doctrines behind them; and the review triggers that should reopen a file. It closes with a chapter on what actually goes wrong.