How a Mesa dental practice owner protected her business and her family

The problem

Our client (we'll call her Dr. Ellis) built a single-location dental practice in Mesa over eight years. She had two kids under 10, a mortgage, a key associate she hoped would eventually buy in, and no estate plan beyond a simple will from before she had children.

If something had happened to her, the practice would have stalled within days. Her husband is not a dentist. Her staff had no authority to act. The associate would have had no clear path to ownership.

What we did

We started with the practice. An operating agreement update defined what happens to her ownership at death or disability, with a funded buy-sell between Dr. Ellis and her associate backed by term life insurance.

On the personal side, we built a revocable living trust with minor's trust provisions for the kids, updated her powers of attorney, and coordinated beneficiary designations across her retirement accounts so nothing conflicted with the trust.

The result

If something happens tomorrow, her associate has a contractual path to the practice at a pre-agreed value, funded by insurance. Her family gets cash from that buyout plus her life insurance, managed inside a trust that protects her kids until they are old enough to manage it themselves.

The whole plan took three weeks and a flat fee she knew before we started.