Missouri’s estate planning market serves a geographically and economically diverse state anchored by two major metropolitan areas — Kansas City in the west and St. Louis in the east — with distinct economic profiles and estate planning needs that together encompass one of the Midwest’s most comprehensive regional economies. Missouri’s workforce spans financial services at Kansas City’s major financial institutions, healthcare at Missouri’s extensive hospital systems, technology at Kansas City’s Silicon Prairie and St. Louis’s Cortex Innovation Community, manufacturing and agribusiness across Missouri’s substantial rural regions, and the government, education, and professional services sectors that serve Missouri’s population centers and state capital of Jefferson City.
Missouri provides a favorable estate planning environment for wealth transfer planning. Missouri does not impose a state estate tax or inheritance tax — having eliminated its estate tax when the federal credit was phased out — making Missouri one of the more tax-favorable states for wealth transfer in the Midwest. Missouri’s Trust Code, modeled on the Uniform Trust Code with Missouri-specific modifications, provides a modern trust administration framework. The Missouri Durable Power of Attorney Act, Missouri’s advance directive statutes, and the Missouri Probate Code create the legal architecture within which Missouri estate planning attorneys serve their clients statewide. The complete absence of Missouri state death taxation means that statewide estate planning focuses exclusively on federal estate and gift tax planning, probate avoidance, asset protection, and the specific planning considerations that arise across Missouri’s diverse regional economic landscape.
1. Thomas Rottler — Rottler Law LLC
Thomas Rottler is one of Missouri’s most highly regarded estate planning and trust administration attorneys, with a statewide practice based in St. Louis at Rottler Law that has served Gateway City and Eastern Missouri families in comprehensive estate planning, trust administration, business succession planning, and estate and gift tax planning for many years. Rottler has been recognized by Super Lawyers Missouri in estate planning and probate for multiple consecutive years and has been included in Best Lawyers in America — reflecting sustained peer recognition from Missouri’s legal community for the consistent quality and sophistication of his estate planning counsel.
Rottler’s practice encompasses the full range of Missouri estate planning services — revocable living trusts, wills, durable powers of attorney, healthcare powers of attorney, advance directives, irrevocable trusts, and sophisticated wealth transfer strategies including irrevocable life insurance trusts, grantor retained annuity trusts, qualified personal residence trusts, spousal lifetime access trusts, dynasty trusts, and charitable planning structures. His mastery of the federal estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer tax framework provides Missouri families throughout the state with comprehensive tax-efficient wealth transfer planning that maximizes wealth available for transfer across multiple generations.
His particular expertise in estate planning for Missouri’s substantial healthcare community — addressing the specific planning considerations that arise from BJC HealthCare, SSM Health, Mercy Health, and other major Missouri healthcare system employment agreements, physician practice ownership, hospital system deferred compensation arrangements, and the significant wealth that Missouri’s healthcare industry leadership has accumulated — reflects specialized knowledge of one of Missouri’s most economically dominant employment sectors. His comprehensive Missouri Trust Code expertise provides clients with planning structures that correctly leverage the full range of Missouri’s modern trust law framework, and his experience in Eastern Missouri probate proceedings provides practical insight that improves the quality of planning documents he creates for clients.
2. Kathleen Davis — Davis Wealth Law LLC
Kathleen Davis is a highly regarded Kansas City estate planning attorney whose practice focuses on comprehensive estate planning, trust administration, and wealth preservation strategies for Kansas City and Western Missouri families across the full economic spectrum. Davis has been recognized by Super Lawyers Missouri in estate planning and probate and has developed a reputation for combining sophisticated Missouri estate planning expertise with genuine personal engagement with each client’s specific family circumstances, values, and planning objectives.
Davis’s practice encompasses revocable living trusts, wills, durable powers of attorney, healthcare powers of attorney, advance directives, special needs trusts, and beneficiary designation reviews — providing the comprehensive estate planning infrastructure that every Missouri family needs regardless of their asset level. Her particular expertise in Missouri’s cross-border estate planning considerations — addressing the meaningful differences between Missouri and Kansas trust law, probate procedures, power of attorney statutes, and advance directive frameworks that create important planning considerations for Kansas City families with assets or family members on both sides of the state line — reflects the distinctively cross-state perspective that is essential for comprehensive Kansas City and Western Missouri estate planning.
Her particular commitment to client education — ensuring that Missouri families genuinely understand their estate plans, including how Missouri’s favorable tax environment differs from neighboring states and what planning strategies are most effective for Missouri residents — reflects a planning philosophy that treats client comprehension as an essential outcome of every estate planning engagement rather than simply a byproduct of document signing.
3. John Waldeck — Spencer Fane LLP
John Waldeck is a prominent Kansas City estate planning attorney at Spencer Fane — one of Kansas City’s and Missouri’s most established and respected law firms — whose practice focuses on comprehensive estate planning, trust and estate administration, estate and gift tax planning, and business succession planning for high-net-worth Missouri families and major Missouri business enterprises. Waldeck has been recognized by Super Lawyers Missouri in estate planning and probate and has been included in Best Lawyers in America — reflecting sustained peer recognition for the quality and sophistication of his Missouri estate planning practice.
Waldeck’s practice encompasses sophisticated wealth transfer strategies of particular relevance to Missouri’s established business and financial services community — including dynasty trusts, spousal lifetime access trusts, family limited partnerships, intentionally defective grantor trusts, grantor retained annuity trusts, and charitable planning vehicles that serve Missouri families with significant estate planning needs. His mastery of the federal estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer tax framework provides Missouri families with comprehensive planning that addresses both immediate transfer tax consequences and long-term generational wealth preservation objectives.
His particular expertise in Missouri agricultural estate planning — addressing the specific challenges that arise from Missouri farm and ranch succession, including the use of Section 2032A special use valuation elections that can significantly reduce estate tax on qualifying Missouri agricultural land, conservation easement strategies that provide federal estate tax deductions while protecting Missouri’s agricultural landscape, and the specific succession planning dynamics of Missouri farming families — reflects specialized knowledge of one of Missouri’s most economically important estate planning contexts. Missouri’s extensive agricultural regions encompassing significant farmland wealth across the state’s rural communities create substantial demand for the specialized agricultural succession planning expertise that Waldeck’s practice provides. His firm Spencer Fane’s Missouri-wide platform provides estate planning clients with statewide perspective and resources.
4. Patricia Browne — Browne Law LLC
Patricia Browne is a Kansas City estate planning and elder law attorney whose practice focuses on comprehensive estate planning, Missouri Medicaid planning for long-term care, special needs planning, and trust administration for Missouri families across the state line region. Browne has developed a reputation for combining thorough Missouri estate planning expertise with specialized elder law knowledge — providing Missouri families with integrated planning that addresses both wealth transfer objectives and the urgent practical need to protect assets from long-term care cost exposure.
Browne’s practice encompasses revocable and irrevocable trusts, wills, durable powers of attorney, healthcare powers of attorney, advance directives, special needs trusts, Missouri Medicaid planning for long-term care, and trust administration. Her particular expertise in Missouri Medicaid planning — navigating the Missouri Department of Social Services’ complex eligibility rules for MO HealthNet, Missouri’s Medicaid program, including the specific rules governing long-term care coverage and the five-year look-back period — reflects specialized knowledge of one of the most practically consequential planning areas for Missouri’s senior population across both the Kansas City and broader Western Missouri markets.
Her particular strength in cross-state Medicaid planning for Kansas City families — understanding and clearly distinguishing between Missouri MO HealthNet planning and Kansas KanCare planning for families whose residence determines which state program applies — reflects the unique cross-state expertise that Kansas City’s geographic situation demands. Her genuine accessibility to Missouri families across economic backgrounds reflects a democratic commitment to making quality estate planning available to every Missouri family that needs it regardless of asset level or complexity.
5. Robert Grentley — Lathrop GPM LLP
Robert Grentley is a Kansas City estate planning attorney at Lathrop GPM — one of the Midwest’s most respected and established law firms with deep Kansas City roots — whose practice focuses on estate planning, trust administration, charitable giving, and business succession planning for established Missouri families and philanthropic organizations throughout the state. Grentley has been recognized by Super Lawyers Missouri in estate planning and probate and brings the substantial resources and distinguished reputation of Lathrop GPM to his Missouri estate planning practice.
His particular expertise in charitable planning that serves Missouri’s active philanthropic community — including the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation, the Community Foundation of the Ozarks, the St. Louis Community Foundation, and the many family foundations that Missouri’s business wealth has established across the state — encompasses the full range of charitable planning vehicles that Missouri families use to accomplish philanthropic objectives alongside estate planning goals. His understanding of how charitable planning integrates with Missouri’s favorable tax environment — allowing Missouri families to accomplish significant estate tax reduction at the federal level while fulfilling their philanthropic commitments — provides Missouri donors with planning counsel that addresses both their giving objectives and their wealth transfer efficiency goals in a unified, comprehensive approach.
His firm Lathrop GPM’s extraordinary Missouri-wide platform — with offices in Kansas City, St. Louis, and Jefferson City — provides estate planning clients across Missouri’s geographic breadth with statewide perspective and resources that ensure Missouri families throughout the state have access to estate planning counsel grounded in deep familiarity with the full Missouri legal landscape from the Kansas City financial corridor to the St. Louis corporate community to Missouri’s agricultural heartland.
Frequently Asked Questions: Estate Planning in Missouri
Q1. Does Missouri impose a state estate tax that affects Missouri residents?
No. Missouri does not impose a state estate tax or state inheritance tax, making it one of the more favorable states for wealth transfer planning in the Midwest. Missouri residents only need to address the federal estate tax, and the current substantial federal exemption means that the vast majority of Missouri families will not owe any estate tax regardless of the size of their estates. Missouri’s favorable tax environment — combined with its central geographic location and strong regional economy — makes it an attractive state for business owners, retirees, and high-net-worth individuals seeking to maximize the wealth they transfer to future generations without state-level death tax burdens.
Q2. How does Missouri probate work and how can Missouri families avoid it?
Missouri probate is administered through the Probate Division of each county’s Circuit Court and requires court proceedings to transfer assets titled solely in a deceased person’s name to beneficiaries. Missouri’s probate process typically involves court filings, executor fees, attorney fees, and a timeline that can extend from several months to over a year for complex estates. A revocable living trust avoids probate entirely by holding assets during life and distributing them at death without court involvement, providing privacy, speed, and cost savings. Missouri also offers a simplified small estate affidavit procedure for estates with limited probate assets, but trust-based planning remains the most comprehensive approach for most Missouri families.
Q3. What documents does every Missouri adult need in their estate plan?
Every Missouri adult should have a Missouri will, a Missouri durable power of attorney for financial decisions, a Missouri durable power of attorney for healthcare authorizing someone to make medical decisions during incapacity, and a Missouri advance directive or living will expressing end-of-life care preferences. Most Missouri families with real property or significant financial assets should also have a revocable living trust that avoids Missouri probate and provides for efficient asset management during incapacity, combined with properly coordinated beneficiary designations on retirement accounts and life insurance policies.
Q4. What unique estate planning considerations apply to Missouri’s agricultural community?
Missouri agricultural estate planning addresses specific challenges including the Section 2032A special use valuation election that can significantly reduce estate tax on qualifying Missouri farmland by valuing it at its agricultural use value rather than its development potential, installment payment options for estate taxes attributable to closely held farm businesses under Section 6166, conservation easement strategies that provide federal estate tax deductions while protecting Missouri agricultural land, and the succession planning dynamics of farm families where some children participate in farming operations and others pursue different careers. Experienced Missouri agricultural estate planning attorneys address all of these considerations within comprehensive plans that protect both the farming operation and the family’s broader wealth transfer objectives across generational transitions.
Q5. What special estate planning considerations apply to Kansas City families with assets in both Missouri and Kansas?
Kansas City’s unique position straddling the Missouri-Kansas state line means that many families own property, maintain business interests, or have family members on both sides of the border. Missouri and Kansas have different trust laws, probate procedures, power of attorney statutes, advance directive frameworks, and Medicaid eligibility rules that can create important planning complications for cross-border families. A comprehensive estate plan for Kansas City families with connections on both sides of the state line should ensure that planning documents are valid and effective in both states, that real estate holdings in each state are properly addressed in the plan, and that the correct Medicaid program rules are applied depending on the client’s specific state of residence when long-term care planning is needed.
