HOW WE ARE DIFFERENT
How We Are Different from Other Estate Planning Law Firms
Explaining to you how we are different from other estate planning law firms requires an explanation of what the “traditional” experience with an estate planning lawyer is like.
If you have worked with an estate planning attorney to prepare estate planning documents for you in the past, this will sound familiar.
During the traditional experience, you will go in and meet with an estate planning lawyer who will oftentimes make things seem very complicated and confusing.
You will have a good idea that your estate planning lawyer is smart and seems to know what he or she is doing, so you will nod and answer questions as if you understand everything.
Because you want to do the right thing for your family, you will have the estate planning lawyer prepare documents for you — perhaps a Will or a Revocable Living Trust — and you will sign the documents, feeling relieved you got THAT taken care of.
You will take your fancy estate planning binder full of documents home, stick it on a shelf or in a drawer, mark estate planning off your checklist as DONE, feel good and never think about it again.
You might remember your estate planning lawyer said something about moving your bank accounts into your trust so you will go to the bank, forget what you were supposed to do, call your estate planning lawyer’s office, have to leave the bank and wait for a call back, (which takes several hours at least and sometimes days) and by that time, you will have gotten busy with other things and never get around to moving that bank account.
A few weeks later, you will get a bill in the mail for $67.50 for 15 minutes of your estate planning lawyer’s time for answering a couple of questions.
You will make a mental note – do not call estate planning lawyer ever again.
Several years later, you will refinance your house or sell it and buy a new one and forget that you were supposed to let your estate planning lawyer know or make sure you kept the title in the name of the trust.
Your children will get older, making your guardianship choices outdated, but you don't want to call your estate planning lawyer because you know you will get a bill in the mail two weeks later.
You will hear something about a change in the tax law, but you figure you would surely get a letter in the mail from your estate planning lawyer if it was something that affected you, so you don't worry about it.
And, you would have to dig through boxes to find your trust documents so you could remember your estate planning lawyer’s name and find his or her contact information.
Who has time for that?
It is not until you become incapacitated or die and your family finds the binder you stuck up on a shelf several years before and never looked at again, that they will realize your plan is so outdated that it has nothing to do with your life, your assets, and the law.
Your family is at a loss.
They don’t know where to turn or what to do, so they contact the same estate planning lawyer you used to prepare the documents, who is as happy as can be to probate your assets, which never made it into the trust.
How Do I Know All of This?
Because not too long ago, it happened to my family and I swore it would never happen to my clients when I created my own estate planning law firm.
And since then, I have seen countless clients come in to see me who have had this exact experience.
Unfortunately, what I discovered is the estate planning industry was not designed to serve growing families who experience lots of change on their way to success.
The estate planning industry was designed to serve 70 and 80-year olds who were preparing for death.
Our Law Firm Prepares You for Life
What makes our firm different is that it is built with the needs of growing families in mind.
We understand you are BUSY, you are growing, you are planning for a life of prosperity and you value ease, convenience, and efficiency.
You are raising children, and caring for elderly parents, while also working hard to build your own nest egg for a lifetime of support.
You want to know you have made the best decisions for your family and that your plan will work when your loved ones need it most.
You want to make sure your minor children would be raised by the people you choose, and never by anyone you would not want, and that your teens and adult children are properly prepared to care for you and what you leave behind.
You want to feel confident that you have made the right choices and handled everything so that you are not leaving behind a mess when something happens.
That is our focus as well.
We have developed unique systems to give you the same access to a personal estate planning lawyer as was previously only available to the super-wealthy, so you can have the guidance you need to build and maintain a life of prosperity and wealth.
And, to keep your family out of court and out of conflict, which is the greatest risk to the people you love and all you have created, even if you have already worked with a traditional estate planning lawyer or created documents online.
We are Here for You
We encourage communication with our clients. In fact, we have thrown out the time clocks so you never have to be afraid to call with a quick question.
Everything we do is billed on a flat-fee basis, agreed to in advance, so there are never any surprises.
And, we ensure the most important details of your estate planning are followed through on and your estate plan continues to work throughout your lifetime.
We ensure your assets are owned the right way throughout your lifetime and none of your assets will end up going through a long, expensive court process or be lost to the state because they were missed after your death.
We have created unique membership programs to keep your plan up to date year in and year out.
We Help You Transfer Your “Family Wealth”
Lastly, we believe your financial wealth is only a small part of your overall “Family Wealth” which is made up of your far more valuable – and most often lost upon incapacity or death – intellectual, spiritual and human assets.
These assets are what make you who you are, and sum up what is most important to you.
And, a survey of inheritors has revealed that what they care about even more than inheriting your money, is inheriting these intangible assets.
Most estate plans only focus on the transfer of your financial wealth to the next generation.
Most people have such great intentions of passing on the intangible, but very few ever get around to it. It is just not a priority until it is too late.
How much do you know about your grandparents’ values? Their most prized personal possessions? How they felt about you? What they had learned during their lifetime?
If you are like most people, you know very little. That is why we build in the capture and passage of these most valuable assets into every estate plan we create.
Not only will we help you pass on your money, but also your values, your insights, your stories, and your experience – the truly valuable assets your loved ones care about the most.
We have developed a tool that allows us to capture and pass on your whole family wealth, including your intellectual, spiritual, and human assets.
We can’t go into all of the details here, but we will definitely talk about it when you come in for your Family Wealth Planning Session.
We look forward to seeing you and caring for your family soon!
PS – If you think this all sounds expensive, well, you are right and you are wrong.
We can guarantee you that if you qualify to meet with us, that planning is substantially less costly than it would be for your family if you become incapacitated or die with a plan that does not work or if you don’t have a plan in place at all.
And, we have never had a single family who believed in this kind of planning and wanted to put it in place for their loved ones leave our office because they could not afford it.
We have made creative financing available to our clients because we know that this planning is the foundation for a life of success!
