Rates & Pricing

A Will-Based Estate Plan provides the foundational documents most clients need to direct the disposition of property at death and provide for financial and healthcare decision-making during incapacity.

Included in the Individual Will Plan

When appropriate to the client's circumstances, the Will may incorporate provisions addressing minor beneficiaries, testamentary trusts, guardianship nominations, survivorship requirements, and other customary estate-planning provisions without automatically converting the engagement to hourly billing.

Why the Package Costs Less

The same documents purchased separately are priced as follows:

Many of our legal service packages combine documents and services that may also be purchased individually. Package pricing can provide savings compared with purchasing the included services separately at their individual à la carte prices.

Eligible clients who pay the full agreed fee at the outset may also receive an upfront-payment discount.

Package savings compare the standard flat fee with purchasing the documents separately. The upfront-payment discount is a separate benefit.

Spouses whose estate plans are substantially reciprocal create efficiencies that do not exist when two unrelated individual plans are prepared separately.

Included

What Does “Coordinated” Mean?

The reduced couple rate assumes that the spouses' estate-planning objectives are sufficiently compatible that the plans can reasonably be developed through a common planning process.

That does not mean every provision must be identical.

It does mean that the plans must share enough of their overall structure, beneficiaries, fiduciary planning, and dispositive objectives to produce meaningful efficiencies in consultation and drafting.

When spouses require materially independent estate plans, see Two Independent Will Plans above.

The published joint-engagement total below covers two materially independent Will Plans.

Two Independent Will Plans: $2,560

A Trust-Based Estate Plan is designed for clients whose objectives are better served through a revocable trust structure.

Included

À-La-Carte Comparison

Package savings compare the standard flat fee with purchasing the documents separately. The upfront-payment discount is a separate benefit.

For spouses whose trust planning can be accomplished through a coordinated structure.

The package includes:

For qualifying married couples, Sero Law may recommend consideration of a Tennessee Community Property Trust rather than a conventional Revocable Living Trust.

Selecting a Community Property Trust does not, by itself, increase the flat fee.

Coordinated Couple Community Property Trust Plan — $2,780

The appropriate trust structure should be selected because of the client's circumstances and planning objectives—not because one trust is sold as a more expensive “upgrade.”

If additional documents, additional real-property transfers, unusual ownership structures, tax analysis, or other work beyond the standard package is required, that additional work may be priced separately.

When spouses require materially different trust structures, the coordinated $2,780 standard-fee package does not apply.

Instead:

The published joint-engagement total below covers two materially independent Trust Plans.

Two Independent Trust Plans: $4,560

A standard formation includes:

Government filing fees are additional.

The multi-member formation service includes the foregoing services together with the additional initial analysis necessary to identify:

The Operating Agreement is a separate substantive legal service unless the client selects one of the formation packages described below.

A standard formation includes:

Includes the formation services and the Single-Member Operating Agreement described in this section.

Includes the formation services and the Standard Multi-Member Operating Agreement described in this section.

Includes the formation services and the Comprehensive Multi-Member Operating Agreement described in this section.

A standard single-member agreement may address:

Designed for a conventional closely held LLC with relatively straightforward ownership and economics.

A standard agreement may address:

The comprehensive level is appropriate when the owners require more substantial planning and customization.

Examples may include:

Some LLC structures simply cannot responsibly be reduced to a standardized document price.

Examples include:

These matters begin at the $8,670 standard flat fee, with a $870 upfront-payment discount and a $7,800 total after discount and may require a customized project fee or hourly representation.

For a conventional confidentiality arrangement with a reasonably defined business purpose.

For a standard contractor relationship requiring customized provisions concerning services, compensation, independent-contractor status, confidentiality, intellectual property where appropriate, termination, risk allocation, and related matters.

For businesses needing a reusable agreement governing the provision or purchase of services.

The fee depends upon the transaction, complexity of the business terms, allocation of risk, and degree of customization required.

Unless otherwise stated in the engagement agreement, flat-fee contract drafting assumes that the principal business terms have already been reasonably determined and does not include unlimited negotiations with another party or opposing counsel.

For a reasonably conventional agreement of manageable length and complexity.

The engagement generally includes:

For clients who want Sero Law not only to identify issues but to prepare proposed revisions to the agreement.

Negotiations, multiple rounds of counterproposals, substantial restructuring, or continued exchanges with another party or opposing counsel are ordinarily billed at:

$290 per hour

unless a separate project fee is established.

A Buy-Sell Agreement can govern what happens to an owner's interest upon death, disability, retirement, termination of employment, bankruptcy, divorce, voluntary departure, or another triggering event.

Depending upon the engagement, planning may include:

Complex or highly customized buy-sell planning may require a higher project fee or hourly arrangement.

Business succession is not merely the preparation of a document. It involves determining how ownership, control, management, and economic value will transition when an owner retires, becomes incapacitated, dies, or otherwise leaves the business.

A succession-planning engagement may involve:

Additional trusts, entity restructurings, transaction documents, tax work, or other implementation documents may be separately priced.

A conventional joint venture or strategic-alliance engagement may address:

Development ventures, investment structures, multi-entity arrangements, substantial capital commitments, complex governance, or heavily negotiated transactions may require a higher project fee.

Customized governance arrangements involving significant control rights, investor protections, management agreements, preferred economics, substantial capital commitments, or multiple interconnected agreements are individually scoped.

Depending upon complexity, the matter may be handled through a project-specific flat fee or at the standard $290 hourly rate.