Per stirpes: by branch.

Per stirpes is Latin for “by branch” (literally “by the roots”). In a will or trust, it answers a question every estate plan must settle: if a beneficiary dies before you, where does their share go?

Distributed per stirpes, the share stays in that beneficiary’s branch of the family: it passes down to their descendants, by right of representation. If your daughter predeceases you, her share goes to her children, in equal parts, rather than being redivided among your surviving beneficiaries. Each branch of the family tree keeps what the plan gave it.

The common alternative, per capita, divides “by head”: the surviving members of a group share equally, and a predeceased beneficiary’s line may take nothing. Two small Latin phrases, very different families twenty years on.

If you landed here trying to understand the words in your own will: that’s the gist, and the person to ask about your specific document is the attorney who drafted it (or one licensed in your state). We make software for those attorneys; we don’t give legal advice.

Most practice software is named for breadth: manage anything, for anyone. We named ours for a term of art from a single field, because that’s the promise of the product: built down one branch of law, not across a hundred.

Software for one practice area can know things a general platform never will. What a testator is. Which state’s formalities apply. That a married couple is one engagement, not two files. That distribution flows by branch. Carrying the field’s own vocabulary as our name keeps us honest about that depth; an estate planner should feel the difference in the first ten minutes.

Our mark is a family tree for the same reason: branches, and what passes down them.