Care for animals. Protect your legacy. Plan with precision.

Yes. In most cases, you will. California law prohibits veterinarians from practicing through a standard LLC, requiring a Professional Corporation structure instead. Washington similarly does not allow regular corporations for veterinary services, insisting on professional entities (like PLLCs or professional corporations owned by licensed vets). These specialized entities provide the right liability protection and tax advantages for your clinic. We will help you choose and set up the proper entity to meet state requirements and protect your personal assets.

With a well-crafted succession and transition plan, you stay in control of what happens. You can sell your practice, transfer ownership to a partner or associate, or pass it to a family member (if they’re qualified) when you’re ready to step back. We work with you to outline a clear exit strategy – whether that’s finding an outside buyer, arranging a buyout with a younger veterinarian in the practice, or gradually phasing out while someone else takes over. All the legal steps (contracts, regulatory approvals in CA or WA, etc.) are handled to ensure a smooth transition. The result is that you retire on your terms, and your clients and staff experience continuity and stability when the time comes for you to hand over the reins.

Absolutely. We often help veterinarians blend family gifts with charitable giving as part of their legacy plan. There are tools like charitable trusts, donor-advised funds, and planned gifts that let you support causes you care about (such as animal shelters, veterinary schools, or animal welfare charities) while also providing for your family. For example, you might set up a trust that pays income to a family member for a period and then leaves the remainder to an animal charity, achieving both objectives. By structuring these gifts thoughtfully, you can also reap tax benefits – charitable donations can reduce your taxable estate or provide income tax deductions, which ultimately means more money goes to your loved ones and less to taxes. We will help design a plan so that your generosity benefits your heirs and your beloved causes in the most efficient way.

Potentially, yes – depending on the size of your estate and where you live. The value of your veterinary clinic (including real estate, equipment, and goodwill) would be included in your estate. If your total estate value exceeds the applicable estate tax thresholds, taxes could apply. Federally, only very large estates (over approximately $14 million in 2025 for an individual) face estate tax, but that exemption is scheduled to drop after 2025. At the state level, Washington has a state estate tax with a much lower exemption (roughly $2.193 million per individual, indexed to inflation). Estates above that amount in Washington can be taxed at 10–20%. California, on the other hand, has no separate state estate tax at all – only the federal estate tax would apply to very large estates. We use advanced planning strategies to minimize estate taxes on your business assets. This can include creating trusts (such as irrevocable life insurance trusts or grantor trusts) to move the clinic or its value out of your taxable estate, making lifetime gifts of business interests, and applying valuation discounts on your practice (for instance, if you transfer partial ownership to family or into a family limited partnership, the law allows discounts on those transferred shares. We might also recommend insurance solutions to cover any remaining tax liability. The bottom line is we strive to reduce or eliminate any estate tax due on your clinic and equipment, so your successors aren’t forced to sell assets to pay a tax bill.

When you have multiple locations or co-owners, planning is even more critical. We will draft customized agreements and entity structures to ensure legal clarity and business continuity. For example, if you have partners, we’ll put a buy-sell agreement in place specifying what happens if one of you retires, passes away, or leaves – this prevents disputes and provides a clear path for the remaining partners to buy out the departing owner’s share. If you operate in more than one location (especially across both CA and WA), we’ll help determine the optimal business structure for each clinic and how they fit together (you might have separate professional entities under one holding company, for instance). We make sure that every location and partner is covered by the plan – including provisions for transferring licenses, handling leases or real estate for each clinic, and dividing responsibilities. Our dual-state expertise is invaluable here: if your clinics or partners span both California and Washington, we ensure your agreements comply with each state’s laws and professional regulations. The result is a seamless plan where all owners know their rights and what will happen in various scenarios, and all your clinics can keep operating smoothly no matter what changes occur in the ownership structure.

Not at all. Even smaller practices benefit from structured estate and business planning. If you own any practice – large or small – proper planning reduces risk and uncertainty. For solo practitioners, having a plan is crucial to avoid chaos in a crisis (who will treat your patients or manage the office if something happens to you?). For any size practice, planning ahead means you control what happens to the business you worked hard to build, rather than leaving it to courts or default laws. In short, advanced planning provides peace of mind and protection no matter the size of your practice.