Anastasia Fainberg: Why Your Beneficiary Designations Could Override Everything in Your Will

Anastasia Fainberg is an estate planning attorney dedicated to helping families protect their future through thoughtful planning. Her practice focuses on estate planning, business planning, asset protection, trust and estate administration, estate tax protection, kids protection planning, elder law, Medicaid, and probate.As a mother of three and the daughter of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, Anastasia understands the importance of building security from the ground up. Her personal background shapes her mission to help clients create lasting legacies and ensure their loved ones are prepared for the unexpected.Before founding her own firm, Anastasia gained experience at a large national law firm and in house, later choosing to focus her practice on helping families secure their futures.In this episode…Most business owners only call a lawyer when something has already gone wrong — but by that point, the options are limited and the costs are high. Business attorney Andrew Legrand calls it the "pants on fire" problem, and he has spent over a decade showing business owners just how much a few minutes of early legal advice could have saved them. What would it mean for your business if you caught those problems before they started?Andrew breaks down the areas where he sees business owners get hurt most — partnerships that were never properly structured, employees misclassified in ways that create six-figure liability, contracts signed without anyone truly understanding what the words meant, and exit strategies that were never built at all. He shares a real case where a poorly drafted severance agreement led to a $91,000 bill that could have been avoided entirely, and explains why trusting your business partner is never a good reason to skip the legal groundwork.In this episode of Verdict Signal, host Daniel Gouw interviews Andrew Legrand, founder of Spera Law Group, LLC in New Orleans, Louisiana, and a nine-time Super Lawyers Rising Stars honoree recognized among the top 2.5% of lawyers in the state. Andrew earned his J.D. from Loyola University New Orleans College of Law and has been helping business owners build, protect, and exit their companies since 2011. The conversation covers partnership agreements, employee classification, exit strategies, AI-generated contracts, and why the best business lawyers focus on solving the real problem rather than just drafting the document you asked for. Tune in to learn how to make informed choices that protect what you build.Want to be featured in the Verdict Signal Podcast?Register here: https://ednadm.com/verdict-signal-application