When people start thinking about their future, one of the first questions they ask is: Do I need estate planning, legacy planning, or both? Legacy planning vs. estate planning overlap but serve different purposes. Estate planning helps you manage and transfer your property during your lifetime and after your death. Legacy planning builds on that foundation by focusing on your personal values, family traditions, and charitable goals.
The team at the Law Office of Andrew M. Lamkin, P.C., helps New Yorkers protect their assets, plan for long-term care, and provide for loved ones through customized estate and legacy planning. Our practice focuses on estate planning, estate administration, supplemental needs planning for individuals with disabilities, residential real estate transactions, and elder law.
Attorney Andrew Lamkin personally guides every client, explaining each strategy in plain language, coordinating with financial and tax advisors, and ensuring every plan aligns with each family’s financial and personal goals. Our firm proudly serves clients across Long Island and New York City, helping families of all backgrounds create estate and legacy plans that reflect their values and protect their loved ones.
What Is Estate Planning?
Estate planning ensures you control your assets during life and after death, while giving trusted people authority to act for you if you cannot. It lets you specify who gets your property when you die and how they receive it.
Estate plans typically include documents like:
- A will, which states who inherits your property and names an executor to carry out the will;
- A trust, allowing you to transfer property to a trust, which a trustee manages for beneficiaries;
- Powers of attorney, which let you appoint trusted people to handle financial or medical decisions if you become incapacitated; and
- Beneficiary designations in assets such as life insurance or retirement accounts.
An estate plan helps you reduce taxes, avoid court delays, and protect your family from confusion or disputes. A Long Island estate planning lawyer can guide you through creating a plan that follows state law and meets your long-term needs.
What Is Legacy Planning?
Legacy planning builds upon estate planning by addressing your financial assets and the values, experiences, and life lessons you want to pass on. While estate planning focuses on what you leave behind, legacy planning defines why and how you leave it.
A legacy plan may include:
- Philanthropic giving, such as charitable trusts or donor-advised funds that let you support causes you care about and receive tax benefits;
- Family governance documents, written guidelines explaining how your family should use, share, and invest inherited wealth;
- Ethical wills, personal statements, or letters sharing your beliefs, traditions, and lessons with loved ones; and
- Education funding plans, such as 529 college savings accounts or trusts that pay for a child’s or grandchild’s education.
Legacy planning aligns your financial plan with your life story. It gives purpose to your wealth by defining how it should serve future generations.
Families often use legacy planning to establish scholarships, create charitable funds, preserve a business, or encourage heirs to manage inherited wealth responsibly. Others use it to maintain family unity and pass down shared values, faith, community involvement, and financial resources.
Legacy Planning vs. Estate Planning
Both types of planning prepare you for the future, but they focus on different outcomes.
| Aspect | Estate Planning | Legacy Planning |
|---|---|---|
| Primary Goal | Manage and distribute property during life and after death | Preserve personal values, purpose, and long-term family mission |
| Main Tools | Wills, trusts, powers of attorney, beneficiary forms | Charitable trusts, letters of intent, education funds, family foundations |
| Focus | Legal and financial control | Emotional, ethical, and generational guidance |
| Timing | Usually ends when property transfers | Continues through future generations |
Estate planning provides the legal foundation that ensures you transfer property according to your wishes. Legacy planning builds on that foundation to express how your values and goals should guide using that wealth over time.
Why You Might Need One—or Both
Many people begin with estate planning to address immediate legal and financial concerns such as wills, taxes, and asset protection. As their wealth or family circumstances change, they often expand into legacy planning.
Estate planning helps if you want to:
- Ensure your property transfers to loved ones smoothly and legally,
- Reduce estate taxes and avoid the expense of probate court, and
- Protect children or dependents through guardianship or trusts.
You may benefit from legacy planning if you want to:
- Support charitable or community causes that reflect your values,
- Pass down family principles or traditions along with money, and
- Encourage responsible use of wealth among heirs.
Completing estate and legacy planning together offers the most complete approach, protecting assets today and defining how your family uses them tomorrow. For example, you may create a revocable living trust and include a statement of values explaining how trustees should use funds for education, family support, or charitable work.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the meaning of Legacy Planning?
Legacy planning organizes your financial and personal affairs so you pass down not just money and property, but also your beliefs, charitable goals, and life lessons. It ensures your loved ones and charitable causes carry your story and priorities forward.
What is the difference between Estate Planning and Legacy Planning?
To comprehensively manage property, estate planning uses legal and financial tools like wills, trusts, and powers of attorney. Legacy planning builds on that foundation by defining how you want your wealth, principles, and traditions to continue across generations.
Do I need both Estate and Legacy Planning?
You may, depending on your priorities and goals. Estate planning ensures you properly manage and distribute your property, while legacy planning defines how that wealth should reflect your long-term vision and values.
Building Your Legacy with the Law Office of Andrew M. Lamkin, P.C.
At the Law Office of Andrew M. Lamkin, P.C., we help individuals and families throughout New York create clear, effective estate and legacy plans that reflect their values and financial goals. Whether you are just beginning to explore legacy planning or estate planning or need help updating an existing plan, we can guide you forward.
Contact our office today to schedule a consultation and begin building a plan that gives you and your family security and peace of mind.
Andrew Lamkin is principal in the law firm of Andrew M. Lamkin, P.C., where he focuses his practice in the areas of elder law, estate planning and special needs planning, including Wills and Trusts, Medicaid planning, estate administration and residential real estate transactions. He is admitted to practice law in New York and New Jersey.
Loading...