The lawyer who sets up a trust is almost always an estate planning attorney. That’s the specialty built around wills, trusts, probate, and the tax rules that govern wealth transfer, and these attorneys handle the vast majority of trust work in the United States. Depending on your situation, you may also want an elder law attorney or a tax attorney involved. The size of your estate, the type of trust you need, and whether any beneficiary relies on government benefits determine which specialist is the right fit.
Estate Planning Attorneys Handle Most Trusts
An estate planning attorney is the starting point for nearly every trust. These lawyers understand how trusts interact with probate, income taxes, estate taxes, and your broader plan for distributing assets. Most can handle everything from a straightforward revocable living trust to more intricate arrangements involving multiple beneficiaries, business ownership interests, or charitable goals. If your situation is relatively standard, an estate planning attorney working alone is likely all you need.
When to Add an Elder Law Attorney
Elder law attorneys draft trusts when the primary goal involves long-term care planning or protecting assets for an aging family member. They are especially valuable when a trust needs to preserve someone’s eligibility for Medicaid or other government benefit programs. The rules governing how trusts affect benefit eligibility are unforgiving, and small drafting choices can disqualify someone from coverage they depend on. If your trust has any connection to government benefits, an elder law attorney’s involvement is worth the cost.
When to Add a Tax Attorney
Tax attorneys come in when a trust involves tax structures that go beyond standard estate planning. They typically collaborate with the estate planning attorney rather than drafting the trust themselves. If your estate is large enough to trigger the federal estate tax, includes business interests with layered tax treatment, or involves generation-skipping transfers, having a tax attorney review the plan adds real protection against costly mistakes.
For context on the thresholds: the federal estate tax exemption for 2026 is $15 million per individual, which means married couples can effectively shield up to $30 million through portability.1Internal Revenue Service. Estate Tax Below that threshold, federal estate tax is not your primary concern, though roughly a dozen states impose their own estate taxes at much lower amounts. Above it, trust structure becomes a high-stakes tax decision. The 2026 annual gift tax exclusion is $19,000 per recipient, and transfers above that count against your lifetime exemption.2Internal Revenue Service. What’s New – Estate and Gift Tax A specialist structures trust funding with these numbers in mind.
Even for estates well under the federal exemption, trusts carry income tax obligations that surprise people. A trust reaches the top federal income tax bracket at a far lower income level than an individual does, so how income is distributed to beneficiaries versus retained inside the trust has real consequences.
How the Type of Trust Changes Who You Need
Not every trust requires the same depth of expertise. Three categories cover most situations.
Revocable Living Trusts
This is the most common type, and the bread-and-butter work of estate planning attorneys. You keep full control of the assets during your lifetime, can change the trust terms whenever you want, and typically serve as your own trustee. The tradeoff is that assets in a revocable trust remain part of your taxable estate and are not shielded from creditors. Most estate planning attorneys handle these routinely.
Irrevocable Trusts
An irrevocable trust requires you to permanently give up control of the assets once they are transferred in. Changing the terms afterward usually requires court approval or the consent of all beneficiaries. The payoff can be significant: assets are generally removed from your taxable estate and may be protected from creditor claims. Because mistakes are extremely difficult to undo, the attorney who drafts an irrevocable trust needs deeper experience than a simple revocable trust demands.
Special Needs Trusts
Special needs trusts require the most specialized knowledge. They allow a disabled beneficiary to receive supplemental funds for things like clothing, education, and recreation without losing eligibility for Supplemental Security Income or Medicaid. Federal law divides them into two main categories. A first-party trust holds assets that belong to the disabled person, must be created before the beneficiary turns 65, and requires that any funds remaining at the beneficiary’s death first repay the state for Medicaid benefits it provided.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. U.S. Code Title 42 Section 1396p A third-party trust holds assets contributed by someone other than the beneficiary and has no Medicaid payback requirement, which makes it the preferred vehicle when parents or grandparents are funding the trust. Getting the structure wrong on either type can strip a vulnerable person of their benefits. These trusts warrant an attorney with specific special needs planning experience, often an elder law specialist.
Credentials That Signal a Qualified Trust Attorney
Two professional credentials help narrow the search. The American College of Trust and Estate Counsel is a fellowship limited to lawyers recognized as leaders in estate planning across all 50 states. ACTEC membership signals that the attorney’s peers consider them among the top practitioners in the field, and the organization’s website includes a searchable directory by location and practice area.4ACTEC. The American College of Trust and Estate Counsel
For a more formal credential, the Estate Planning Law Specialist designation is the only national, ABA-accredited board certification for estate planning attorneys. Earning it requires at least five years of practice with 40% or more devoted to estate planning, 36 hours of continuing legal education, professional liability insurance, peer recommendations, and passing a comprehensive national exam.5NAEPC. EPLS Introduction and Mission Statement
Beyond credentials, look for someone who asks you detailed questions before recommending a trust type. An attorney who jumps straight to a revocable living trust without asking about your family dynamics, tax situation, and long-term care concerns is working from a template rather than building a plan. The initial consultation should feel like a conversation about your goals.
What You Should Expect to Pay
Attorney fees for a standard revocable living trust package, including the trust document, a pour-over will, a power of attorney, and a healthcare directive, generally range from roughly $1,000 to $5,000. The lower end reflects a straightforward trust for an individual with modest assets and simple goals. The upper end covers married couples, more complex asset structures, or situations requiring irrevocable or special needs trusts. Recording fees for real estate deed transfers add a small additional cost that varies by county.
Online trust creation services advertise much lower prices, sometimes under $200. For someone with a simple estate, no tax concerns, no special needs beneficiaries, and property in only one state, an online service might produce a workable document. The document will not be reviewed by an attorney for compliance with your state’s laws, and no one will walk you through the funding process, which is where most trusts fail in practice. The cost of fixing a poorly drafted or unfunded trust after someone dies almost always exceeds what an attorney would have charged to do it right the first time.
What to Bring to the First Meeting
Walking in with organized information saves time and reduces your billable hours. Your attorney will need the full legal names and contact information for everyone with a role in the trust: yourself as grantor, anyone you want to name as trustee and successor trustee, and every beneficiary. If you are naming a professional fiduciary or corporate trustee, have that entity’s information ready too.
A detailed inventory of the assets you want in the trust is equally important. Include real estate with addresses and approximate values, bank and investment accounts with institution names and rough balances, business ownership interests, life insurance policies, retirement accounts, and any valuable personal property. Knowing how each asset is currently titled helps the attorney plan the funding process.
Come prepared to articulate your goals. Are you primarily trying to avoid probate? Protect assets from creditors or a potential future divorce? Provide for a child with a disability? Minimize estate taxes? Ensure a family business passes smoothly to the next generation? The answers drive every structural decision in the trust document, and an attorney cannot draft well without them.