Vanessa Bellucci Markos Expertise: Estate Planning, Long-Term Care Planning Title: Attorney at Law Education: Villanova University, New York Law School Location: Staten Island, New York Highlights New York-based attorney with an emphasis on estate planning and general business counseling.Prior experience includes owning and managing the operations of multiple licensed home care companies who provided services to senior citizens and individuals with disabilities.Admitted to practice law in New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island. Experience As an attorney, Vanessa spends her time assisting her clients with estate planning, Medicaid planning, probate, and general business counseling matters. Her estate planning work includes critically thinking through the specifics of each client's estate plan (and the potential tax implications thereof) and the drafting of wills, trusts, health care directives, and powers of attorney.Vanessa also enjoys working with clients during the formation and start-up phases of their businesses to make sure business owners don't fall victim to red-tape infractions and that their corporate documents are in order. Her small-business counseling also includes assisting clients in the preparation of contracts and other relevant everyday documents that enable businesses to run more efficiently. Additionally, Vanessa places significant focus on business succession planning as part of a comprehensive estate plan for those clients who are entrepreneurs, self-employed, or business owners of any sort. Education Vanessa graduated from Villanova University in 2006 with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and minor in Philosophy. At that time, she did not know if she would attend law school in the future but her studies in Philosophy would prime her for that experience.She went on to graduate from New York Law School with a Juris Doctor in 2012 and soon realized that a career focused on estate planning and small business counseling would allow her to focus on the things she loved most about her former and current career paths, including critical thinking, writing, and working with families and small business owners. About The Balance The Balance, a Dotdash Meredith brand, makes money easy to understand. We give people tools they need to not only make smart financial decisions but also prepare for the experiences they will have along the way. Our team of expert writers and editors have extensive qualifications in the topics they cover, and many of them have MBAs, PhDs, CFPs, and other advanced degrees and professional certifications. We require our writers to use primary sources in their articles, which are also approved by our Financial Review Board and fact-checked. You can learn more about the standards we follow in producing accurate, unbiased content in our editorial policy.