Estate Planning and Administration

The Law Office of
Johanna Sanders, Esq., PLLC

The Firm's Practice Areas Include:

- Wills and Trusts
- Estate Planning, Administration, and Probate
- Powers of Attorney, Living Wills, Healthcare Proxies
- Ethical Wills
- LGBTQ-Specific Planning Matters
- Planned Charitable Giving

We all have assets that we call our own, whether they’re a box of legos, a grandmother’s rent-controlled apartment or a bunch of brokerage accounts with a whole lot of zeros at the end.

You've reached the right place if you are looking to create an estate plan or settle an estate after a loved one has passed.

Call 212-600-0369.

About

Johanna Sanders is principal at The Law Office of Johanna Sanders, Esq., PLLC. Her practice is focused on drafting estate planning documents (including wills, trusts, powers of attorney, healthcare proxies, living wills) as well as probate and estate administration. Sanders holds a Juris Doctorate from Fordham Law School, where she was a Stein Scholar, and she holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from Binghamton University.

For the past ten years, Sanders has been involved in advocacy and research for a range of issues affecting LGBTQ+ communities. Most recently, as Director of Policy & Organizing at The Vaid Group, Sanders co-led The National LGBTQ Anti-Poverty Action Network and served on the study team for The National LGBTQ+ Women*s Community Survey. In law school, Sanders worked on civil rights impact litigation at Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, on housing and social security disability matters at Brooklyn Legal Services in their LGBT/HIV Advocacy Unit, and traveled to Dilley, Texas with the CARA Family Detention Pro Bono Project to assist with legal representation at the Mexican border.

Sanders is a member of the Trusts and Estates Law Section of the New York State Bar Association, the Queens County Bar Association and LGBT Bar NY. Sanders served on the Board of Directors for Congregation Beit Simchat Torah.

Sanders is admitted to practice law in New York and New Jersey only.

From the desk of Johanna Sanders, Esq.

In this work, we get to know each other. So, here is a little about me, the human being across the table, to explain why I started this practice.

My mom was a primary care physician in Queens. I grew up watching the care she took with her patients and her ongoing commitment to stay a neighborhood doctor. She made house calls, visited her patients in the hospital, called her patients to check up on them after they weren’t feeling well. She had relationships with three generations of families because they trusted her. Not only was she a brilliant diagnostician, she cared, she followed up, and she was a small one-person practice, not a Delaware corporation that required you to press 2 and then 4 and then 1 before they tell you that the office is closed.

I follow in her footsteps, and those of my father’s parents who started over from scratch after fleeing Germany in 1939. Their resilience and their hope for the future guide my path. As we find ourselves living through a global pandemic, with a news cycle that is unrelenting, preparing for an unknown future feels more and more daunting. And yet, clarity about what is most important has risen to the surface.

Planning for the future can be an emotional journey. It is one that I take very seriously. I encourage clients to create ethical wills, passing down values for loved ones, along with their legal documents. We talk about tax consequences of certain acquisitions and gifts and I stress the importance of early planning. Drafting up your documents is one part of the process. Planning for transfers that happen over the course of your life is also a vital part of the discussion.

I work one-on-one, counseling as best I can from a place of honesty, compassion, and commitment. I’m here to help you take care of your family, whatever that means to you.

If you'd like to know more, please give me a call.

I look forward to working together and hearing your stories.

Johanna