Estate Planning or Intestacy?

See Estate Planning: What You Need to Know for an efficient summary, plus the link to a cool site where you can find out which relatives would get how much, depending on which state you live in, should you fail to leave a will.

The article includes this plug for trusts:

[T]rusts are no longer the province of the very rich. They have morphed over the years into useful and straightforward vehicles to protect assets in life from creditors and lawsuits and to pass them to heirs on your own terms.