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Attorney Lisa Hughes, Estate Planner

Attorney Lisa M. Hughes is experienced at preparing wills and trusts, powers of attorney, guardianships, and conservatorships; in administering estates of decedents and incapacitated individuals; and in the related tax and asset-protection planning. Her particular areas of focus include succession planning for closely held businesses, same-sex couples, and incapacitated beneficiaries, as well as certain elder-law challenges and trusts for those with special needs.

A graduate of Georgetown University Law Center, Hughes is licensed in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia, and has more than two decades of experience in estates, trusts, and wealth-planning.

Additionally, Hughes is a member of the Board of Governors of the Trusts and Estates Section of the Virginia State Bar; she is a Public Safety Trainer with the Commonwealth Autism Service www.autismva.org; and she serves as legal counsel to Spectrum Housing Foundation, a tax-exempt organization that facilitates support for disabled adults.

Contact Lisa Hughes by email.

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”

– Carl Rogers

Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!”

– Andrew Carnegie

If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.”

– Joseph Addison

The dove descending breaks the air / With flame of inkandescent terror.”

– T.S. Eliott

Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, ‘Make Me Feel Important.’ Not only will you succeed in sales, you will succeed in life.”

– Mary Kay Ash

You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”

– Winston Churchill

Death is to lose the earth you know, for greater knowing; to lose the life you have, for greater life; to leave the friends you loved, for greater loving; to find a land more kind than home, more large than earth.”

– Thomas Wolfe

What is the point of having free will if one cannot occasionally spit in the eye of destiny?”

– Jim Butcher, White Night

Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail. There’s only make.”

– Corita Kent

You take your life in your own hands, and what happens?
 A terrible thing: no one to blame.”

– Erica Jong

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. 
Now put foundations under them.”

– Henry David Thoreau

There is only one success – to be able to spend your life in your own way.”

– Christopher Morley

Entrepreneurs willingly assume responsibility for the success or failure of a venture and are answerable for all its facets.”

– Victor Kiam

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow know what you truly want to become.”

– Steve Jobs

Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!”

– Andrew Carnegie

The gem cannot be polished without friction; nor man perfected without trials.”

– Chinese proverb

The biggest flaw in our existing theory of capitalism lies in its misrepresentation of human nature.”

– Muhammad Yunus

Instead of loving your enemies, treat your friends a little better.”

– Edgar W. Howe

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands, but in seeing with new eyes.”

– Marcel Proust

Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. 
Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow.”

– Mary Jean Irion

No longer talk at all about the kind of man a good man ought to be, but be such.”

– Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

The important thing is not being afraid to take a chance. The greatest failure is to not try.”

– Debbi Fields, Mrs. Fields Cookies

We never know how high we are
 till we are called to rise;
 And then, if we are true to plan,
 Our statures touch the skies.”

– Emily Dickinson

A truly forgiving person is someone who experiences all the anger merited by injustice and still acts with fairness and compassion.”

– Martha Beck

He who wants to tear down a house must be prepared to rebuild it.”

– African Proverb

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly,
 what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

As each woman realizes her power, she transforms the world.”

– Patrice Wynne, WomanSpirit Sourcebook

Change is a math formula. Change happens when the cost of the status quo is greater than the risk of change.”

– Alan Webber, author, "Rules of Thumb"

Entrepreneurs need to search purposefully for the sources of innovation that indicate opportunities for success.”

– Peter F. Drucker

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.”

– Mark Twain

Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful people are always asking, ‘What’s in it for me?’”

– Brian Tracy

You must have chaos within you, to create a dancing star.”

– Frederic Nietzsche

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

– Nelson Mandela

Success is the necessary misfortune of life, but it is only to the very unfortunate that it comes early.”

– Anthony Trollope

I’ve come to confirm that one’s title, even that of president, says little about how well one’s life has been led. No matter how much you’ve done, or how successful you’ve been, there’s always more to do, to learn, and to achieve.”

– Barack Obama

Your own words are the bricks and mortar
of the dreams you want to realize.
 The words you choose and their use establish the life you experience.”

– Sonia Croquette

There are children playing in the street who could solve some of my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago.”

– J. Robert Oppenheimer

A man who strikes first admits that his ideas have given out.”

– Chinese Proverb

If people like you they’ll listen to you; if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.”

– Zig Ziglar

Do you believe it is important to give back some portion of your wealth to support charitable causes?”

– Steven Schussler

It is only when the mind is free from the old that it meets everything anew, and in that there is joy.”

– J. Kristnhamurti, The First and Last Freedom

I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent.”

– Thomas Edison

A great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.”

– Albert Schweitzer

You don’t love someone because of their looks or their clothes or their car. You love them because they sing a song only your heart can understand.”

– L.J. Smith

Ripeness is all.”

– William Shakespeare

Treat the attainment of happiness in the same way an entrepreneur would approach building a business — with a vision, plan, goals, and a systematic approach.”

– Ted Leonsis

Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true.”

– Leo Jozef Suenens

To follow, without halt, one aim: There’s the secret of success.”

– Anna Pavlova

Do not say, ‘why were the former days better than these,’ for it is not from wisdom that you ask this.”

– Ecclesiastes, 7:10

Challenge is a dragon with a gift in its mouth. Tame the dragon and the gift is yours.”

– Noela Evans