Joel A Bernstein

We are new clients of Joel Bernstein's this year and chose him for our estate planning based on reviews from this site and reviews from the "Arlington List" group on Facebook. We also wanted a local attorney to make it easier on our young adult kids should anything happen to us. Joel spent a lot of t...ime with us explaining our options of trusts and wills and helped us decide the best course for us, given our somewhat complicated situation involving assets and children we each brought into our second marriage. His fees and fee structure were explained clearly to us both before our first meeting and before our second meeting. We were not pressured nor given any deadlines under which we we asked to make decisions. We look forward to his reminders over the coming years to revisit and update our plans, because it took us a long time to get our affairs in order and we know we will forget again! We found him to be both personable and professional. Perhaps his rates are not the lowest around, but we have found that "you get what you pay for" to be true in this situation, as with most professional services.

After having Joel Bernstein explain the fees he charges for estate planning, my wife and I decided to hire him to create a trust for us. His expertise was invaluable in helping us to decide what kind of trust best fit our needs. We feel confident that Mr. Bernstein has our best interests in mind as... he helps us keep our Trust up to date. We have recommended him to friends.

My husband and I are extremely pleased to recommend Joel Bernstein's exceptional expertise for all estate planning needs. Joel is a thoughtful, intelligent, kind, and caring professional who values the time of his clients and is considerate of expenses. We appreciate his clear communication and gen...erosity of time and service. Engaging the services of Joel and his staff gives us a complete sense of security and confidence that our estate planning needs are taken care of in great detail. Joel is someone whom we frequently recommend to friends and family. We are grateful for his on-going interest in our legal needs and his personal commitment to maintaining a high standard of professional responsibility and sincere personal warmth. We saw Joel's business card while in a professional building for another type of service and decided to have an initial consultation meeting with him. We've been grateful ever since!

My wife and I had put estate planning out of our minds for a while during our children’s busy teen years, though we knew that we should get it done. We had heard of Joel Bernstein and knew others who had used him to create an estate plan. We had a will at the time, but we knew it was weak and woul...d have caused relatives great stress. We decided we had to consider an estate plan. We called the office to make an appointment and we were told what we could do beforehand in order to help (i.e. bring copies of financial statements, etc.) and that we should plan to be there for “as much time as it takes” in order that we should understand what we were getting into if we decided to go forward. Well, after having consulted with Joel Bernstein we realized that he has dedicated his career to estate planning and is an absolute expert in the field. We were given an education about the possible estate planning choices in front of us (all with our two children in mind) and my wife and I made the mutually quick realization that Joel would be our estate planning lawyer. Joel completed our estate plan and we genuinely could not have expected the thoroughness that we witnessed and now have that thoroughness legally written into our estate plan. My wife had recently been through the execution of her mother’s estate and noticed that the documents Joel prepared had clauses that her mother’s did not have. We learned how important these clauses are and realized that many estate plans do not have them. Knowing that Joel is a phone call away is also important to us, as eventually there will be changes to make in the estate. My wife and I both agree that it may have been the smartest thing we’ve done in financial terms in our thirty years, and we enthusiastically and without reservation recommend Joel A. Bernstein as an outstanding estate planning attorney. Arlington, MA