Estate Planning Bootcamp for New Lawyers: The Judgment Calls the Forms Won’t Make for You

Don D. Ford III, Managing Partner | Ford + Bergner LLP

Don D. Ford III is the Managing Partner of Ford + Bergner LLP, a probate, guardianship, and estate litigation firm with offices in Houston, Dallas, and Austin, and has devoted more than twenty-five years of practice to the administration of decedents’ estates. Board Certified in Estate Planning and Probate by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization, he works daily with the full menu of post-death remedies, from formal administration to the streamlined small estate and summary procedures at the center of this program, making him ideally suited to guide practitioners in choosing the remedy that holds up after the 2026 threshold increases.

• Education & Credentials

Mr. Ford earned his J.D. from Baylor University School of Law, where he concentrated in estate planning and business planning, and his B.B.A. in Accounting from Baylor University, followed by post-graduate coursework toward a Master’s in Taxation. He has been licensed in Texas since 1997, is Board Certified in Estate Planning and Probate by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization and is a certified mediator through Pepperdine University’s Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution.

• Recognition & Leadership

Mr. Ford has been selected to the Texas Super Lawyers list from 2024 through 2026, is a Fellow of the Houston Bar Foundation, and serves as a Commissioner on the Texas Judicial Branch Certification Commission. He previously served as Vice Chairman of the Guardianship Certification Board — appointed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Texas and his commentary on estate administration has appeared in outlets including Family Office Magazine and TheStreet.

• Professional Involvement

A faculty presenter for the National Business Institute since 2001, Mr. Ford has taught probate and guardianship seminars for two decades, including the program “Oddities and Challenges in Texas Probate” and courses on probate basics, trust administration, and guardianship alternatives. He is the author of “Your Complete Guide to Leaving an Inheritance for Your Children and Others” and recent analyses on the coming generational wealth transfer and is an active member of the probate sections of the State Bar of Texas, the Houston and Dallas Bar Associations, and the American Bar Association’s Real Property, Trust & Estate Law Section.

• Experience

Mr. Ford began his career as a tax attorney at a large international accounting firm before building a practice devoted to probate administration, estate and trust litigation, guardianship, and fiduciary services across Texas’s major markets. Over twenty-five-plus years he has shepherded estates of every size through the courts and litigated what happens when the wrong procedure is chosen, giving him a practical command of when a small estate affidavit, summary or independent administration, or full probate is the remedy that actually holds, and making him uniquely positioned to walk attendees through that decision under the new 2026 thresholds.

Leah Del Percio, Co-Founder & CEO | Trustate

Leah Del Percio is the co-founder and CEO of Trustate, one of the fastest-growing software platforms for trusts and estates law firms and trust companies.

• Education & Credentials

Ms. Del Percio holds a B.A. from the University of Miami, a J.D. from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, and an LL.M. in Taxation from Georgetown University Law Center. She practiced in New York, New Jersey and Maryland.

• Recognition & Leadership

Ms. Del Percio chairs Trustate’s National Trusts & Estates Advisory Council and personally certifies every document in its drafting library. Inc. named her to its 2026 Female Founders 500.

• Professional Involvement

She lectures regularly at universities and law schools, teaches CLE programs, and is a member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP).

• Experience

Before founding Trustate, Ms. Del Percio was a member of the Tax, Trusts, and Estates group at DLA Piper, and earlier practiced at a New York/New Jersey boutique firm. She advised individuals, families and institutions on succession and crisis planning, wealth preservation, asset protection and complex tax strategy.

Tereina Stidd, Special Counsel | Duane Morris LLP

Tereina Stidd is special counsel in the Private Client Services Practice Group of Duane Morris LLP, resident in Boca Raton, Florida. With more than 20 years in private wealth planning, she advises individuals, families, and fiduciaries on estate planning, wealth transfer, trust and estate administration, and the tax matters that attach to each.

• Education & Credentials

Ms. Stidd earned an LL.M. from the University of Miami School of Law in 2003, a J.D. from Ohio Northern University College of Law in 2002, and a B.A., cum laude, from St. Bonaventure University in 1999. She is admitted to practice in Florida.

• Recognition & Leadership

Before joining Duane Morris, Ms. Stidd served as Director of Education for the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys from 2024 to 2026, following three years as its Associate Director of Education. In that role she developed and presented advanced continuing legal education programs, advised attorneys nationwide on complex estate planning and trust administration matters, and authored thought leadership on fiduciary and tax issues.

• Professional Involvement

Ms. Stidd is co-author of the homestead chapter (Chapter 6) of Basic Estate Planning in Florida, 6th through 11th editions, published by The Florida Bar. Her 2026 presentations for Justia Law include What to Do When Death Is Imminent and Mistakes in Estate Planning and How to Correct Them.

• Experience

Ms. Stidd’s practice includes developing tax-efficient planning strategies for high-net-worth individuals, advising on fiduciary administration, and counseling clients on asset protection, domicile planning, and wealth preservation. She joined Duane Morris as special counsel in 2026 after associate positions at Cole Schotz P.C. (2016–2021), Nason Yeager Gerson White & Lioce, P.A. (2008–2012), Katz Baskies LLC (2007–2008), Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge LLP (2006–2007), and Thaler & Thaler, P.A. (2004–2006).

Joseph M. Donohue, Managing Member | Donohue, O’Connell & Riley PLLC

Joseph M. Donohue is the Managing Member of Donohue, O’Connell & Riley PLLC and has advised thousands of clients on structuring their personal affairs and businesses to minimize taxes, limit exposure to unforeseen liabilities, and move assets smoothly between generations. Affluent families and business owners rely on him to plan around their real estate, investment, and insurance assets and to work with their existing teams of trusted advisors.

• Education & Credentials

Mr. Donohue graduated summa cum laude from Boston University with a Bachelor of Arts in English literature and art history and a minor in French, earned a Masters of Philosophy in English literature at Oxford University, and received his Juris Doctor, with honors, from Boston College Law School. He is fluent in French and German.

• Recognition & Leadership

At Boston University, Mr. Donohue was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated with distinction; at Boston College Law School he served as executive editor of the Boston College Law Review. Since establishing his own practice in Warwick, New York in 2008, he has grown the firm organically and through acquisition into a multi-jurisdictional practice with eleven offices in five states, including New Hampshire, where clients can access that state’s favorable trust laws.

• Professional Involvement

Mr. Donohue is a member of the New York and New Hampshire Bar Associations.

• Experience

Mr. Donohue’s practice concentrates on complex income and estate tax planning, trust administration and fiduciary services, grantor and non-grantor trusts, estate and gift tax planning, business formation and succession, charitable legacy planning, grantor-retained annuity trusts, and real estate tax planning across acquisition, management, and disposition. He began his career in the New York and Paris offices of Leboeuf, Lamb, Greene and MacRae, LLP, where he worked with clients such as Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the Art Students League, and the American Museum of Natural History on matters ranging from real estate finance to charitable giving programs, and he draws on firsthand experience as an investor in residential and commercial real estate.

Georgia Bender Ginley, Associate Attorney | Donohue, O’Connell & Riley PLLC

Georgia Bender is an Associate Attorney at Donohue, Beasley & Ferber PLLC, where she counsels individuals and families on estate planning, elder law, and estate administration matters. Based in the firm’s Warwick office, Georgia brings to her practice a genuine enjoyment of client relationships, a steady comfort with complex legal and financial questions, and strong research skills that allow her to develop thoughtful, well-grounded strategies for every matter she handles. She is a valued part of the team serving the Orange County community and the firm’s broader client base across the Northeast.

• Education & Credentials

Georgia earned her Juris Doctor from Brooklyn Law School in 2021. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from Pace University, conferred in 2017. She is admitted to practice law in both New York and New Jersey.

• Professional Involvement

Georgia is a member of the New York State Bar Association and the New Jersey State Bar Association. Through her work at the firm, she contributes to Donohue, Beasley & Ferber’s long-standing commitment to serving clients and families throughout the Orange County community.

• Experience

Prior to joining Donohue, Beasley & Ferber PLLC in August 2024, Georgia practiced as an associate at two respected law firms in New Jersey and New York, where she gained several years of substantive experience advising clients on sophisticated legal matters. That background, combined with her natural aptitude for navigating complex fact patterns and legal questions, informs the tailored counsel she provides today. Whether guiding a family through the preparation of a comprehensive estate plan, helping older clients and their loved ones navigate the challenges of aging, or administering estates with care and precision, Georgia approaches each engagement with diligence, warmth, and a steady focus on her clients’ goals.

SESSION 1 – The First Meeting | Joseph M. Donohue & Georgia Bender Ginley | 11:00am – 12:00pm

This session covers the first client meeting in estate planning, where the engagement is shaped and where most later problems begin. It opens with why the intake questionnaire is not the interview, including the plan that failed for a fact that never reached the file, and then turns to the facts clients leave out: prior marriages and their children, the estranged child, the caregiver child who expects to be paid, the beneficiary designation that overrides the will, the retirement account that is most of the net worth, the out-of-state property, the business with no operating agreement, the grandchild on public benefits, the debt one spouse doesn’t know about, and “everything to my spouse, then the kids” in a blended family.

The session then addresses who the client is, the joint representation of spouses, including the information-sharing conversation and the engagement language it needs, and the adult child who made the appointment and is paying, when they stay in the room and when they leave.

Attendees will learn to recognize capacity and undue-influence signals at the first meeting and to write the same-day memo that matters years later, as well as the engagement letter sentence that says what is out, funding, designation changes, tax advice, business documents and why it decides a malpractice claim a decade later. The session closes with flat-fee pricing that survives the second draft and what a new planner should refer out: taxable or state-taxable estates, special needs, business succession, long-term-care/Medicaid planning, and the client who needs a litigator.

BREAK | 12:00pm – 12:10pm

SESSION 2 – Will or Trust, Outright or in Trust | Joseph M. Donohue & Georgia Bender Ginley | 12:10pm – 1:10pm

This session frames the will-versus-revocable-trust decision as a state-economics call: what probate actually costs and takes where you practice, the four situations where a trust earns its fee, property in more than one state, incapacity, privacy or contest pressure, and the blended family and the client for whom a will plus coordinated designations is the better plan. It then turns to the tax frame new lawyers weren’t taught: with the federal exemption at $15 million per person for 2026 and indexed after, the working client is not an estate-tax client, and planning shifts to income tax and basis, hold appreciated assets, don’t gift low-basis property.

Attendees will learn to recognize the old mandatory credit-shelter design in existing documents and why it now needs repair, and to treat portability as a duty of the engagement, not an option. The session also covers the state overlay, the dozen-plus states with their own estate or inheritance tax, thresholds near $1 million, the New York cliff, and the client who moves, before weighing outright versus age-tier versus lifetime trusts for children and what each protects against, the blended-family choices of outright to the spouse versus a QTIP-style trust versus a life estate, and the special-needs flag. It closes with the retirement account as the largest asset: how the ten-year rule shapes whether a person or a trust is named, with see-through drafting left to its own program.

BREAK | 1:10pm – 1:20pm

SESSION 3 – Drafting the Documents: Draft for the Stranger Who Reads It Last | Leah Del Percio | 1:20pm – 2:20pm

Every estate plan is read three times: by the lawyer who drafts it, by the client who signs it, and years later by a successor trustee, a probate clerk, or a judge who never met anyone involved. Only the last reading decides whether the plan works. This session teaches new estate planners to read and draft for that third reader.

We skip the black-letter recital. Instead, we walk live through a real (de-identified) trust, clause by clause, and ask one question of each: what happens when a stranger applies this exactly as written? You will see how a single definition moves money to the wrong branch of a family, how a missing successor-trustee clause sends a modest trust to court, how an unread tax clause makes one child pay the income tax on another child’s inheritance, and how a power of attorney that looks complete can’t fund the trust it was meant to fund.

You leave with a repeatable reading discipline and a one-page pre-signing checklist you can use on your next file, whether you draft from your own forms, a purchased system, or a colleague’s old documents.

BREAK | 2:20pm – 2:30pm

SESSION 4 – Signing, Funding, and the File | Tereina Stidd | 2:30pm – 3:30pm

This session treats the signing ceremony as evidence. It covers who should be in the room and who shouldn’t, how to choose witnesses, the self-proving affidavit, and the notarial certificates that get rejected. It also covers documenting capacity with a memo written the same day, and the recognition problems that come up when a plan is signed remotely or in another state, where your own state’s statute decides whether the document will be honored. The session then turns to funding, asset by asset: real property, financial accounts (including the custodian’s own paperwork), business interests, vehicles, and beneficiary designations reconciled to the plan. Attendees will learn to build a funding system with four parts: a funding memo that assigns each asset a responsible person, a document, and a deadline; a “what the client must do next” letter; a confirmation file; and a ninety-day follow-up. The session closes with the file and the originals: custody of original wills, what the file must contain to answer a beneficiary’s claim decades later, and retention policies that outlive the client.

BREAK | 3:30pm – 3:40pm

SESSION 5 – What Happens When the Client Dies | Don D. Ford III | 3:40pm – 4:40pm

This session walks through administration from the first thirty days: locating the original will, death certificates, the EIN and the fiduciary’s first account, notice, and securing the house and the digital accounts. It then addresses the probate versus trust-administration fork, along with the small-estate procedures the plan was supposed to make unnecessary and treats the inventory as the moment the unfunded asset surfaces and what the cure costs. Attendees will learn to spot the fiduciary’s early mistakes: distributing before the claims period closes, commingling, paying the wrong debts first, and treating a designation as estate property.

The session also covers the appraisal that sets basis; the estate-tax return filed only for portability, and the family that declines it; and the retirement-account claim and the trust that did or didn’t qualify. It then turns to the documents read by strangers, the tangible-property fight, the ambiguous succession clause in front of a judge, the tax clause read by a beneficiary who now owes tax, and the no-contest clause tested, before closing the loop with plan-review triggers and what the planner owes the family and the fiduciary at death.