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NW Legacy Law NW Legacy Law provides estate planning and probate services for families and loved ones.

NW Legacy Law primarily serves families in Southwest Washington and surrounding communities in Washington and Oregon. For estate planning, we advise and draft plans to specify who will care for minor children, who will administer finances and inheritances, and who will make medical decisions. The attorneys at NW Legacy Law are Jake Seegmuller, Kayleigh Lindemuth, and Thomas Hackett.

Own a home in Washington and another in Oregon? Your estate plan can affect how your family handles both properties.See ...
10/13/2026

Own a home in Washington and another in Oregon? Your estate plan can affect how your family handles both properties.

See how a will, an unfunded trust, and a funded trust can lead to different outcomes.

Have questions about your plan? Book a strategy session at (360) 342-9402.

A will and a trust do the same core job. The difference shows up after you die.With a will, your personal representative...
10/06/2026

A will and a trust do the same core job. The difference shows up after you die.

With a will, your personal representative usually can't act until the court approves them. With a funded trust, your successor trustee accepts the role and can begin working with financial institutions.

Want to see which fits you? Book a strategy session at (360) 342-9402 or nwlegacylaw.com.

This post is for informational purposes only and is not legal advice.

10/01/2026

Should you have a will or a trust? Our attorneys usually answer with a question of their own: when you pass, do you want the person in charge to be in or out of a court system?

Once you know your answer, the decision mostly makes itself. Neither choice is wrong.

If you're weighing the two, a strategy session will show you which structure fits and what your plan would cost, with no obligation to move forward. Call (360) 342-9402 or visit nwlegacylaw.com.

This post is for informational purposes only and is not legal advice.

Should you have a will or a trust? Our attorneys usually answer with a question of their own: when you pass, do you want...
09/30/2026

Should you have a will or a trust? Our attorneys usually answer with a question of their own: when you pass, do you want the person in charge to be in or out of a court system?

Once you know your answer, the decision mostly makes itself. Neither choice is wrong.

If you're weighing the two, a strategy session will show you which structure fits and what your plan would cost, with no obligation to move forward. Call (360) 342-9402 or visit nwlegacylaw.com.

This post is for informational purposes only and is not legal advice.

A fun event at the Fort this Thursday. 4:00 – 4:45 pm John Jay, How the Constitution was Put Together in One SummerJohn ...
09/16/2026

A fun event at the Fort this Thursday.

4:00 – 4:45 pm John Jay, How the Constitution was Put Together in One Summer
John Jay was elected to the Clark County Charter Review Commission in 2025 and also serves on the Vancouver Planning Commission. He has taught at Clark College, holds a B.A. from UC, Berkeley, and an MBA from UT at Austin.

4:45 – 6:00 pm Activities including: Can you Pass the Citizenship Test? Kahoot Game.
Kahoot is a live, interactive digital game that you can use on your phone. Everyone votes in real time, and after the round ends the answer will be revealed.

6:00 – 6:45 pm Melissa Williams, Fourteenth Amendment: A Constitution in and of Itself
Melissa Williams is a community historian who researches African American history. Williams’ career is in higher education, and she currently serves as Policy Associate for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges.

6:45 – 7:30 pm Carolyn Long, The Bill of Rights + What Does the Constitution Mean Today
Dr. Long is an associate professor in the School of Politics, Philosophy and Public Affairs at WSUV since 1995. Her research interests focus on American Institutions, Public Law and American Public Policy.

Here's a rule worth knowing: an inheritance is yours to keep, even after you remarry. Washington says so by law. Oregon ...
09/16/2026

Here's a rule worth knowing: an inheritance is yours to keep, even after you remarry. Washington says so by law. Oregon says so by presumption. Different route, same result.

Here's how it slips away anyway: nobody signs paperwork to turn an inheritance into shared money. They deposit the check into the household account, because it's easier on a Tuesday. A few years later, it isn't separate anymore. It's shared money.

The fix isn't complicated. Keep it in its own account. Keep it out of the joint mortgage payments. Keep records.

Is the inheritance you received still titled the way it arrived?

If you don't have a will, a court decides who ends up handling everything you'd leave your kids. Washington just wrote a...
09/13/2026

If you don't have a will, a court decides who ends up handling everything you'd leave your kids. Washington just wrote an entire law about who that person can be.

The new law puts limits on strangers who take over estates when no family member steps forward. Useful guardrails. But guardrails are all they are.

For parents, a will does two jobs at once. It names who would raise your kids. And it names who would manage what you leave behind, so someone you trust is handling it for your children.

That's the part no law can do for you. The state can restrict the wrong person. It can't name the right one for your family.

If you've been meaning to get this done, you don't need everything figured out first. Naming the right people is the heart of it, and it's simpler than most parents expect.

Chadwick Boseman died in 2020. He was 43. He didn't have a will.Six years later, his estate is back in a California cour...
08/20/2026

Chadwick Boseman died in 2020. He was 43. He didn't have a will.

Six years later, his estate is back in a California courtroom. His brothers have asked a judge to remove his widow from handling it.

We don't know the details of that family, and it isn't our place to guess. But the shape of it is familiar.

When someone dies without a will, the state's statute decides two things. Who inherits, and who is put in charge. In Washington that's RCW 11.04. In Oregon it's ORS 112.

Those are reasonable rules, written for strangers. They don't know that one child lives nearby and one doesn't. They don't know about the second marriage, or which sibling has always been the peacemaker.

What we see most often isn't a fight about money. It's a fight about who gets to decide.

That part you can settle in advance, in writing, while everyone can still talk about it calmly.

If you've been meaning to name the person who would be in charge, or you named someone years ago and aren't sure it still fits, that's a conversation worth having.

The life insurance form asked for a name. You wrote your daughter's. She's nine.That's one of the most common gaps we se...
08/19/2026

The life insurance form asked for a name. You wrote your daughter's. She's nine.

That's one of the most common gaps we see, and it's an easy one to miss.

Here's what usually happens. A life insurance company generally can't hand money to a minor. So the court gets involved, appoints someone to hold it, and supervises the account until your child turns 18. On her 18th birthday, whatever is left is hers. All of it. At once.

Most parents don't intend that. They filled out the form quickly, years ago, and moved on.

A few things worth knowing.

Your will doesn't control this. The beneficiary form does. If the two disagree, the form usually wins.

A custodial account can push the age out somewhat. In Washington the age can be set as high as 25 when it's specified at the time the account is created.

A trust gives you the most say. You choose the ages, what the money can be used for, and who's in charge of it.

None of this requires a complicated plan. It requires reading one form.

If you'd like help checking yours, reach out.

Malcolm-Jamal Warner signed a family trust in 1996. He was 26 years old. Nearly two decades later, he married. His daugh...
08/18/2026

Malcolm-Jamal Warner signed a family trust in 1996. He was 26 years old. Nearly two decades later, he married. His daughter is nine. The trust he signed at 26 never met either of them.

Reporting says it leaves most of the estate to his mother, with the rest going to other relatives. His widow filed suit last month over promises she says were made in their prenuptial agreement. That case is ongoing, and those are allegations, not findings.

We're sharing this because it's the most common problem we see, and it has nothing to do with bad drafting. A trust is a picture of your life on the day you sign it. Then things move. You marry. A grandchild arrives. You sell the business. Someone you named as trustee passes away, or moves, or you grow apart. The document doesn't notice any of that.

A question worth sitting with: what's different about your family now compared to the year you signed your documents?

If the honest answer is quite a lot, that's not a failure. It means the plan is due for a look. That's a short conversation, and we're glad to have it.

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1003 Officers Row
Vancouver, WA
98661

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

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+13609757770

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