The Low Income Taxpayer Clinic at Michigan Law expanded its work to include an estate planning component this fall.
The clinic was founded nearly 20 years ago to help low-income clients with tax issues. Now renamed the Tax and Estate Planning Clinic, it is also helping its clients deal with issues like medical and financial powers of attorney, funeral planning, and what will happen to the family home in the event of death.
The clinic has grown to 18 students in the fall semester—some of whom are returning, advanced students and all of whom will gain experience in both income tax and estate planning law. Ann Arbor attorney Eric Sloat, ’17, took the clinic as a student and is now helping to teach it.
The new estate planning services were offered specifically to existing tax clients this fall, but the clinic plans to open up to new estate planning clients in future semesters.
“The clients are so surprised and happy about the new services,” said clinic director Nicole Appleberry, ’94. “Some say, ‘Why would I need this? I own nothing.’ But you own your sovereignty over what you want to have happen to your body when you become incapacitated or die, or who’s going to pay your rent if you can’t.
“For that type of thing, our work can help avoid a crisis. We can get those documents together so that if something does happen, the clients’ wishes can be known and effectuated.”
Trusts for special-needs dependents, and establishing who will receive cherished keepsakes and even how pets will be cared for after their owner dies, are other issues the clinic may handle for its clients.
“It is a really gratifying area of practice,” Appleberry said. “We are helping students do good in the world—having their clients’ voices be heard on the things that are most important to them. I’m really excited to be able to bring this to the students, and so far the students have been super excited as well.”
Gabby Schultz, a 3L, is taking the clinic this term, and she has a background in tax and estate planning from her work as a summer associate. She was already interested in the tax aspect of the clinic, but adding the estate planning component made it even more appealing.
Schultz plans to continue in estate planning after graduation, and she said it’s a rewarding and interesting area of law to practice. “Not only is your client always a person or a family, a lot of times it’s generations of the same family or different branches of the same family,” she said.
“Those clients may come in initially as estate planning clients, but you often transition to being the general counsel for any issue they have. Anything that comes up with a family business, for example—they only know one lawyer, so they call you.”
Schultz said her clinic clients were very happy to hear about the new services, which will serve their needs well. “It helps them with a lot of issues. We can advise them in real time instead of referring them to a family lawyer or an estate planning lawyer.”
Banner image: Educating the community about tax issues has been an essential part of the clinic’s work since its inception, like a March 2026 event in Inkster, Michigan. Now the newly renamed Tax and Estate Planning Clinic is expanding its focus.