Welcome to the website for the LL.M. Program in Estate Planning and Elder Law at Western New England College School of Law. I am pleased to introduce to you our new and innovative graduate program in estate planning. Our LL.M. Program in Estate Planning and Elder Law is the only such program in the Northeast and one of only a few in the nation. Western New England College School of Law has created this Graduate Program to help educate attorneys in the expanding areas of estate planning and elder law.

Any attorney whose practice includes planning for the intergenerational transfer of wealth must have extensive knowledge of and training in a number of diverse areas of law, including wills and trusts, estate and fiduciary administration, income taxation, federal wealth transfer taxation, and the use of various entities and products (particularly trusts and insurance products) in wealth planning and management. An attorney who represents elderly clients must also develop expertise in social security law, Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal and state laws and regulations that directly affect these clients.

We have designed our LL.M. Program for Estate Planning and Elder Law to teach the practical aspects of drafting estate plans, administering the settlement of estates, and representing elderly clients and their families. As a final project, every student will design and draft a comprehensive estate plan under the supervision of an experienced estate planner. I invite you to review our skill-oriented curriculum. Please visit our LL.M. Course Descriptions page to learn more about each specific course.

A new component of the program is the online option. Through live participation in online classrooms, students can be active participants in the classroom experience. This flexibility enables students to take individual courses online or pursue their LL.M. entirely online!

I urge you to view the other pages of our LL.M website to find out more about our new and distinctive program. I also hope that you will contact me for more information. My address is:

Professor Frederick D. Royal
Director of LL.M. Program in Estate Planning and Elder Law
Western New England College School of Law
1215 Wilbraham Road Springfield, MA 01119-2684
Telephone: (413) 782-1422
Email: froyal@law.wnec.edu