Kitch Drutchas Wagner Valitutti & Sherbrook

To ensure a successful estate planning effort, it is critical that the parties affected recognize that the decisions they make or fail to make involve significant financial and personal implications. That's why the Kitch firm bases its approach on the appropriate mix of planning knowledge and individual consideration. Our attorneys have assisted with estate planning for entrepreneurs, physicians, and others, giving careful attention to accomplishing the clients' dispositive intentions, avoiding estate and gift taxes (or deferring them for as long as possible), avoiding probate, and protecting assets from potential creditor claims.

Our approach is based on our belief that the client shouldn't have to adapt to fit the needs of preformatted documents; we start from our own comprehensive document models, but then make sure that they are adapted to meet the individual's needs, not the lawyer's convenience.

Services include:

• Encouraging and assist clients in charitable giving, and performing due diligence upon charities
• Assisting in business succession planning, providing agreements for redemptions or cross-purchase of business interests. We also coordinate such agreements with clients' estate plans.
• Addressing the needs and vulnerabilities of cognitively-impaired clients. We seek appointment of a conservator or guardian for clients when less-restrictive measures such as power of attorney and trust will not adequately protect them.
• Estate administration, including preparation of estate tax returns.
   

The Kitch firm was co-founded in Detroit in 1969 by Richard A. Kitch and Richard F. Suhrheinrich, now a Senior Federal Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge.

Historically, the Firm has attracted a diverse pool of attorneys and staff, seeking only the most talented individuals to serve our clients.

The Kitch firm was recognized in 2006 by Michigan Lawyers Weekly as the Detroit area law firm with the highest percentage of women attorneys (41%) and the highest percentage of female partners (27%).

The Kitch firm recognizes and celebrates the concept of diversity and  equal opportunity in the workplace.