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Kierman Law PLC

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Kierman Law PLC

Life Planning Made Easier. Kierman Law focuses on estate planning, probate litigation, asset protection, and charitable giving.

Protect your family and financial assets for the future, whether you have a high net worth or just want to ensure proper guardianship. Update or reimagine life plans in the event of the birth of a child, divorce, remarriage, adoption, or other life or financial changes. Provide for your elderly or special needs family members.

09/03/2026

Dolly Parton's passing at 80, leaving behind an estimated $450 million fortune, is a reminder of just how complicated even a well-planned estate can look from the outside.

Parton and her husband Carl Dean had no biological children. Her estate reportedly includes a music catalog worth roughly $120 million, a stake in Dollywood, and other significant assets, with likely beneficiaries including nieces and nephews and charitable organizations like her Imagination Library. Parton worked with an estate attorney and spoke publicly about the importance of planning ahead, once saying, "Since I had no kids, and my husband was pretty independent, I had freedom."

That freedom did not happen by accident. It came from deliberate planning, likely including trusts that keep her actual wishes private rather than part of a public probate record. Her husband's own 2013 will reportedly named nineteen nieces and nephews between the two of them, which gives a sense of how a family without children can still build a plan that reflects who actually matters to them.

This is a situation more families face than people realize. Whether you have no children, a blended family, or relatives spread across the country you want to include, a generic estate plan template built around a standard nuclear family often does not fit. Extended family members, godchildren, close friends, and charitable causes can all be named specifically, but only if your plan is built around your actual relationships rather than assumed defaults.

If you do not have children, or your family situation does not fit a standard template, your estate plan needs to be built around your actual life, not a generic assumption about who inherits.

If you are in Arizona, call us at 480-719-7333 to build a plan that reflects your real family, whatever that looks like.

This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Please consult an attorney for guidance specific to your situation.

09/02/2026

We usually talk about estate planning in terms of what you want to leave behind: gifts, money, a legacy.

Sometimes it is just as important to think about what you don't want to leave behind. A mess. A battle between people who used to get along. A conflict nobody saw coming. An attic full of boxes nobody wants to deal with.

Planning is not just about building something for the people you love. Sometimes it is about clearing away the things that would otherwise become their problem.

If you live in Arizona, call (480) 719-7333 today. Let's talk about cleaning up your plans, and maybe a little bit of your life too.

A lighter load is its own kind of gift.

09/01/2026

Free Webinar: Estate Planning for Special Needs Families

If you're a parent or caregiver of a loved one with special needs, I'd love to have you join me for a free educational webinar covering the legal tools available to protect your family's future, including special needs trusts, preserving eligibility for government benefits, and long-term planning strategies.

September 29, 2026
12:00 PM (AZ time)
Live virtual webinar
Complimentary, space is limited!

Reserve your spot by emailing [email protected]. I hope to see you there!

08/27/2026

I've been nominated again for Jewish News Readers' Choice!

I'm so honored to be nominated once more in this year's Jewish News Readers' Choice Contest. This recognition means the world to me, especially knowing it comes from the community I've had the privilege of serving over the years.

Voting is officially open, and I'd love your support!

Vote here: https://readerschoice.phoenixcjp.org

Thank you for being part of this journey with me!

08/26/2026

Here's something I see more often than people expect: a family member finds out what their inheritance is actually going to be, and it changes everything.

I met with a client recently who is in a strong financial position. He found out what his family was planning to do with his future inheritance, and it upset him enough that he is now changing his own plans.

It is a reminder that assumptions about inheritance, on either side, can cause real friction if they are never actually discussed.

If you are spending, or planning around, an inheritance in advance, you might want to have that conversation before you build plans around it.

If you live in Arizona, call (480) 719-7333 today. Let's talk about your family's expectations and make sure your plan reflects reality, not assumptions.

Clear conversations now prevent hard feelings later.

08/25/2026

Life does not always give notice. A medical emergency, a sudden hospitalization, a deployment, or an unexpected trip that turns into an extended absence can all leave a parent needing someone else to legally care for their children on short notice. This is exactly what a temporary guardianship document is built for, and it is one of the most overlooked pieces of a family's planning.

A temporary guardianship allows you to name someone, in advance, who can step in and make decisions for your children if you are unable to for a defined period. Without one, a trusted grandparent, aunt, or family friend caring for your kids during an emergency may not be able to enroll them in school, authorize medical treatment, or make basic decisions on their behalf, even with your full blessing, because they have no legal authority to do so.

I hear from parents fairly often who assume that leaving a note or a verbal understanding with a family member is enough. It is not. Schools, doctors, and other institutions need to see an actual legal document before they can act on someone else's authority over your child. A temporary guardianship document gives the person you trust the legal standing to act immediately, without a court hearing, for the period of time you specify.

This is different from naming a long-term guardian in your will, which addresses what happens if something happens to you permanently. Temporary guardianship covers the in-between moments, the emergencies, the deployments, the medical situations, where you are still very much your child's parent but temporarily unable to act on their behalf.

If you have children and no temporary guardianship documents in place, this is one of the simplest and most protective steps you can take for your family.

If you live in Arizona, call (480) 719-7333 to put a temporary guardianship plan in place for your children.

This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Please consult an attorney for guidance specific to your situation.

08/20/2026

Most business owners have a will. Far fewer have a real plan for what happens to the business itself if they die or become incapacitated tomorrow. A will tells the world who inherits your shares. It does not tell your team who signs the payroll, who has authority over the business bank accounts, or who steps in to keep client relationships intact while the family is grieving.

I work with a lot of family business owners here in Scottsdale, and the gap I see most often is not a lack of caring about the business. It is a lack of translating that care into documents that actually work the moment they are needed. A buy-sell agreement determines what happens to your ownership interest, whether a surviving spouse ends up as an unwilling business partner with your co-owners, and how that ownership gets valued and paid out. A succession plan names who actually runs day to day operations, which is a completely different question from who inherits the value of the company.

Without both pieces in place, families often face a business that stalls out exactly when it can least afford to. Employees do not know who to answer to. Vendors and clients get nervous. Co-owners can end up in a dispute with a grieving spouse who never wanted to be part of the business in the first place, and who may not have the knowledge or interest to run it.

The good news is that this is entirely preventable with planning done while everyone is healthy and the business is running smoothly. A buy-sell agreement funded properly, often with life insurance, gives your co-owners and your family a clear, pre-negotiated path instead of a negotiation happening for the first time during a crisis. A succession plan identifies your successor, documents the authority they need, and gives your team clarity from day one.

If you built something worth protecting, it deserves a plan built specifically around it, not a generic will that never anticipated what your business actually needs to keep running.

If you are in Arizona, call us at 480-719-7333 to talk through what a succession plan should look like for your business.

This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Please consult an attorney for guidance specific to your situation.

08/19/2026

An estate plan does not have to sound like everyone else's.

I have clients who built a long list of friends, family, and charities into their plan, right down to a specific bequest for a friend to finally move an electric box that has been in an annoying spot in the neighborhood for years. It is small, it is personal, and it is exactly the kind of detail a good plan can hold space for.

Your plan can reflect the actual people in your life and the specific things you care about, not just a generic list of beneficiaries.

If you live in Arizona, call (480) 719-7333 today.

Let's talk about your friends, your family, and the details that make your plan yours. Your legacy does not have to be generic.

It can sound just like you.

08/18/2026

Blended families have more moving parts than most estate plans are designed to handle.

When you marry someone with children from a prior relationship, the standard estate plan — everything to the spouse, then equally to the kids — often does not reflect what you actually want. Your spouse may outlive you by decades. During that time, your assets may be spent, given to others, or ultimately inherited by people who were never part of your plan.

A well-structured estate plan for a blended family typically uses a combination of trusts to balance providing for your spouse during their lifetime while ensuring your own children ultimately receive what you intend for them.

It also needs to address beneficiary designations on retirement accounts and life insurance, which pass outside of your will entirely and can easily undermine even a carefully drafted estate plan if not coordinated.

Blended family estate planning is not complicated to execute when done correctly. It does require intentional planning rather than default documents.

If you are in Arizona, call us at 480-719-7333 or visit kiermanlaw.com.

This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Please consult an attorney for guidance specific to your situation.

08/13/2026

Most people think estate planning is about what happens after they die. But some of the most important documents in your plan are designed to protect you while you are still alive.

A durable power of attorney gives someone you trust the legal authority to manage your finances if you become unable to do so yourself. Without one, your family may need to go to court to get that authority. In Arizona that process is called a conservatorship, and it takes time and money at exactly the moment when quick action matters most.

A healthcare power of attorney gives someone the authority to make medical decisions on your behalf if you cannot communicate your wishes. Without one, medical providers may default to next-of-kin rules that do not reflect who you actually trust or what you actually want.

These documents are straightforward to create and powerful to have in place. Most people who do not have them simply have not made the time.

If you are in Arizona, call us at 480-719-7333 or visit kiermanlaw.com to get both documents in place.

This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Please consult an attorney for guidance specific to your situation.

Address

14362 N Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard, Suite 1000
Scottsdale, AZ
85260

Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 5pm
Tuesday	9am - 5pm
Wednesday	9am - 5pm
Thursday	9am - 5pm
Friday	9am - 5pm

Telephone

+14807197333

Website

http://www.kiermanlaw.com/

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