Ellen Williamson Law, PC

12/31/2025

Looking back at 2025; did your stuff or your people change?

We hope you’ve enjoyed the holiday season and had opportunity to spend time with loved ones and relax. As we head into 2026, it's a natural time to take stock: What changed in 2025? For many of you, the answer includes significant life events—new family members, new assets, relocations, or relat...

11/18/2025

This holiday season, consider giving your loved ones the gift of transparency about your estate planning. Sharing your wishes and thinking with your children allows you to leave not just an estate plan but a legacy.

As you prepare for holiday gatherings with your family, I want to suggest a gift you might not have considered—one that costs nothing but could save your children from confusion, conflict, and heartbreak when you're gone. The gift is simply this: a conversation about your estate plan. I know what

12/03/2024

The book “Mouse Tales: A Behind-the-Ears Look at Disneyland” describes an incident in 2002 when hidden cameras caught someone spreading a substance on the Haunted Mansion ride. With anthrax attacks fresh in the public’s consciousness, the situation warranted a police and fire department response, the book says, though the dust was determined to be human remains.

Pellman and fellow ex-custodial cast member Lynn Barron wrote in the book “Cleaning the Kingdom: Insider Tales of Keeping Walt’s Dream Spotless” that attractions need to be shut down when someone spreads suspected ashes.

“Unless you want your loved one swept up into a dust pan or vacuumed up — in either case, to be dumped in an industrial trash compactor — do not spread their cremated remains in the Haunted Mansion,” they wrote.

Disney superfans are having their ashes spread on park rides like the Haunted Mansion. It’s a big no-no.

10/31/2024

Wishing all who celebrate a Happy Diwali! As you celebrate this beautiful Festival of Lights, we hope Diwali brings you joy, prosperity, and warmth. May your homes and hearts shine bright with peace and happiness.

Thank you for being part of our community. Wishing you and your loved ones a wonderful Diwali filled with new beginnings and success!

🪔 Happy Diwali! 🪔

09/17/2024

Proud and humbled to have been named a Super Lawyer for 2024!

Ellen Williamson is one of the top rated Estate Planning & Probate attorneys in Dallas, TX. She has met the stringent Super Lawyers selection criteria.

09/08/2024

"In 2020, 56 percent of Americans who died were cremated, more than double the figure of 27 percent two decades earlier, according to the Cremation Association of North America (CANA). By 2040, 4 out of 5 Americans are projected to choose cremation over casket burial, according to both CANA and the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA)."

Cremation is now more popular in the United States than a traditional casket burial, and twice as common as it was two decades ago. What does that say about us?

08/29/2024

This article in the Washington Post by a columnist with terminal cancer resonated with me.

"Dying is a busy time. It isn’t just all my correspondents and visitors. If you want to help your family by leaving behind a well-organized estate — and that’s at the top of my list of priorities — there are countless things to do, including tossing out old financial papers, closing credit cards and financial accounts, revising your will and other estate-planning documents, creating financial instructions for family members, and so much more.

I thought I had my financial affairs in good order, and yet I’ve been working at this pretty much daily since my diagnosis. There’s a surprising amount still to do. Sound boring? In truth, at a time when I’ve largely lost control of my destiny, it feels good to bring order to this one small corner of my life."

What if you were told you had a year to live? For me, it isn’t a theoretical question.

08/19/2024

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08/11/2024

Is estate planning on your college student’s back-to-school to-do list?
As families prepare to send kids back to school, you may be doing back-to-school shopping for school supplies, clothes, and backpacks. If you’re the parent of a college student or other young adult, there are a few other items that might belong on the back-to-school to-do list: financial and medical powers of attorney.

While we often associate estate planning with later stages of life when one has children or significant property, it’s important for younger adults too. While young adults may not need a comprehensive estate plan, powers of attorney are an important first step in estate planning.

When you take your 10-year-old daughter to the pediatrician, the doctor won’t question your right to make care decisions on her behalf or access her medical records. Her school will allow you to register her for classes and will send you report cards. But once she turns 18, she becomes an adult in the eyes of the law. And as an adult, she’s entitled to the same privacy you are from care providers and other 3rd parties. This is true even if she still depends on you for financial support, lives at home, and is covered on your insurance.

If your child were to become seriously injured and unable to make care decisions, just being Mom or Dad would not automatically allow you to make medical decisions, sign legal documents, or handle financial transactions. That could create the need for you to seek guardianship, a costly and involved process that makes an already-stressful time harder.

If, however, your child had executed financial and medical powers of attorney naming you as her agent, you’d be able to act right away to ensure that your child’s needs are met. Ensuring your young adult child has powers of attorney gives you and your child the peace of mind that should anything happen, you can step in to help.

If you’d like to get your child set up with power of attorney documents before sending them off to school, we offer a POA-only package for $100 including an attorney consult via phone or Zoom, preparation of the documents, and detailed signing instructions. Reach out to us today to get started if your family would like to add estate planning to your back-to-school list!

05/30/2024

Did you know that when you set up a bank account, you may inadvertently be creating or changing an estate plan? When an account is set up with joint ownership, a payee on death, or a convenience signer, that has implications for the management of your account and its ownership after your death.

My latest blog, “Understanding Multiple Party Accounts,” covers this. In this five-minute read, I break down the concepts of Joint Tenancy in Common, Joint Tenancy with Right of Survivorship, Payee on Death, and Convenience Signers. Used properly, these tools can help facilitate your estate plan, but used incorrectly, they can upend it, so it’s important to understand them.

Multiple-party accounts can play a role in a well-drafted estate plan, but it’s important to zoom out, look at the overall estate planning goals, and then thoughtfully consider how each piece fits within it.