If you’re reading this page, someone has probably just died, and you’ve been named as the executor or administrator of their estate, or you’re a family member trying to figure out what happens next. The honest answer is that there’s a process, it has a defined shape, and most of it is straightforward once you know what’s coming. The hardest part for most families isn’t the legal complexity – it’s doing this work while also grieving, communicating with relatives, and managing the practical logistics of someone’s death. My job is to handle the legal and tax pieces so you can focus on the rest.
I’m Lawrence Israeloff. I’m an estate attorney and a CPA, and I’ve been guiding families through probate and estate administration across Long Island and the New York City metro for over two decades. The work covers the full range – uncontested estates that move through Surrogate’s Court routinely, contested matters where heirs disagree, complicated estates with business interests or out-of-state property, and the fiduciary income tax work that follows the legal administration.
Probate is the court-supervised process of settling a person’s affairs after they die. In New York, the process happens in the Surrogate’s Court of the county where the person was domiciled at death – Nassau, Suffolk, Queens, Kings, New York County, and so on. Each county’s court has its own particular procedures and pace, but the basic shape is the same.
The process generally involves filing the will (or a petition for letters of administration if there’s no will), publishing notice to creditors, identifying and inventorying the estate’s assets, paying debts and taxes, resolving any disputes that arise, and finally distributing what’s left to the beneficiaries. For an uncomplicated estate, the timeline is typically six months to a year. Estates with disputes, business interests, multi-state property, or significant tax issues take longer – sometimes considerably longer.
Not everything in a person’s estate goes through probate. Assets that pass by beneficiary designation (retirement accounts, life insurance), by joint ownership (jointly held bank accounts, jointly owned real estate), or through a trust pass outside probate by their own rules. A meaningful share of administration work is dealing with these non-probate assets, which often outnumber the probate assets in a typical estate.
If you’ve been named as executor in a will (or appointed administrator in an intestate estate), the legal duties are real and the timeline matters. The recurring tasks:
A few situations that turn a routine probate into something more involved:
A first conversation is usually a thirty-minute call to understand what’s happened, what the family situation looks like, and what immediate steps need to be taken. After that, the work depends on the estate’s complexity. For straightforward estates, the engagement is largely procedural – preparing court filings, handling notice, working through asset transfers, and filing the necessary returns. For more complex situations, the engagement is more involved.
In every case, the executor or administrator is the one with legal authority and ultimate responsibility; my role is to advise on the law, prepare the documents, and handle the technical work, while keeping you informed about decisions only you can make.
For families who want to avoid putting their own loved ones through this same process, the Estate Planning and Wills & Trusts pages cover the planning side of the conversation. Most of the difficulty of probate can be reduced (and some of it eliminated) through thoughtful planning beforehand.
I work out of Melville, NY and represent executors, administrators, trustees, and beneficiaries across Long Island, the five boroughs, Westchester, and the broader New York metro. Each county’s Surrogate’s Court has its own procedures and pace, and local familiarity with the courts and the practitioners genuinely helps the work move efficiently. Useful starting points if you want to read on your own: the New York Surrogate’s Court, the IRS estate and gift tax page, and the American Bar Association’s estate law resources. None of those replace representation tied to the specific estate you’re handling.
If a loved one has recently died and you’ve been named as executor, or if you’re trying to figure out what to do as a family member while administration gets underway, that’s the conversation. Schedule a consultation and we’ll talk through what’s happened and what comes next.
