Practice Areas

Estate Planning

Probate Administration

Trust Administration

Guardianships

Suzanna Miller, Attorney-at-Law

I was drawn to the field of estate planning and administration by my family history.  Legend has it that after my grandfather died suddenly of a massive heart attack, there was an old-style reading of his Will with all the family gathered in the lawyer’s office. His Will revealed that he was leaving assets to a mistress whom he had been “keeping” in another town.  My grandmother was shattered.  He also left his family business to the one person who was not equipped to keep it afloat, rather than to the family member who had learned the business inside and out.  That decision resulted in severed relationships, which never healed.

The family history wasn’t all bad.  There’s another story of a more distant ancestor who had squirrelled away what today would be barely enough money to buy a used car and he created a trust that grew and provided support for generations.

My primary goal in working with my clients is to get at the heart of their family relationships, and to help them meet their end-of-life goals in a way that preserves those family relationships with as much harmony as possible.  Estate planning is not a cookie cutter transactional endeavor.  Any plan worth its weight is uniquely tailored to the facts of each client’s relationships and assets.  I call this approach Holistic Estate Planning.

I’m a California native, having spent my formative years in Pacific Grove on the Monterey Peninsula. I moved to New York City in the early 1990s where I attended Brooklyn Law School, graduating cum laude. Law school achievements included serving as the Editor-in-Chief of the Brooklyn Journal of International Law, and being awarded the Brooklyn Women’s Bar Association Award for “demonstrated legal scholarship and leadership qualities.” After passing the New York bar, I clerked for two years for federal Circuit Court Judge Ed Carnes of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, after which I practiced in both large and small law firms in New York.

I moved to Vermont in 2005 to raise my family.  While still practicing law with my New York firm remotely (before remote was much of a thing), I co-founded Vermont Cookie Love in 2006, which grew from a tent at the Shelburne Farmer’s market to a thriving local brand.  I left the cookie business in 2013 and have been working exclusively in the field of Estate Planning and Administration ever since.

When I’m not working, parenting, or engaging in perpetual home repair, I enjoy many creative pursuits, including performing in local community theater, playing piano, acrylic pour painting, and practicing natural building techniques using cob and stone.  I live in an historic house in North Ferrisburgh with my two teenage children.

I am admitted to practice in Vermont and New York.