Estate Planning: Pile of Papers or Process with a Purpose?
I regularly work with clients who have gone through the Estate Planning process previously. Sometimes it is because several decades have passed since they did their initial Estate Plan and significant changes needed to be made to the wishes and nominees. Other times they want to revisit because they just felt they needed to get an Estate Plan done when they had young children, didn't know what their Estate Plan said, and they wanted to make sure this time their Estate Plan was set up for their specific needs. Occasionally, clients very recently did their Estate Plan through a "do it yourself" website or a high volume trust producer (also known in the industry as "trust mills") and they realized after the fact that their Estate Plan was not customized for them and they wanted to take the process seriously.
My firm’s emphasis is on customized, comprehensive, compassionate Estate Planning. It means a lot to me that my clients are involved in the journey so that their wishes, concerns, and goals are addressed appropriately in a manner that they and their loved ones can understand and follow. This process should be a collaborative one where both clients and the attorney are asking each other questions. It is not just about the end product, but also about the thorough process. Also, I want families to not only have a good Estate Plan that covers their intentions, but also works because the Trust is fully funded. This means I hope clients feel comfortable with me so they can get in touch with me when they have new accounts and want to confirm they are doing the right thing.
Good Estate Planning is an investment of time and resources; it cannot be done effectively if a client just fills out a couple of forms and isn’t guided by a competent attorney who takes time to work with them. Though I cannot decide whether someone’s priority is to have a pile of papers or an Estate Plan with a purpose, I can give them some food for thought when considering how to approach the process while exploring this topic.
With this in mind, here is the story of our clients, who we'll call Rose and William.
I’m Rose, we have two children in elementary school and this is our experience with Estate Planning:
We had a young toddler and were expecting a second child in a few months. I knew that we should consider our Estate Planning, even though we did not have any medical problems or concerns. We weren't sure how to look for an attorney and followed the recommendation of one acquaintance who got a deal with a local attorney. We had an in-person consultation with the attorney, who even told us that he was "more of a business person than a lawyer." This should have been a red flag, but the price was right. The lawyer took a few notes on the computer, gave us our price quote, and we decided to use his firm so we could do this before our baby’s arrival.
The receptionist sent us a short PDF questionnaire that had use fill out our names and the names of family members and nominees for different roles. We filled it out and double checked everything was spelled correctly before returning the questionnaire. Next, we were scheduled to come back to the office for a second meeting a few weeks later. An Estate Planning binder full of papers was presented to us. Someone we had never met or spoken to before met with us, briefly going over the papers. That was a surprise because we assumed we would be meeting with the same lawyer and no one told us otherwise. I’m glad that I looked at the documents before I signed because every document where my mom's name was listed had her name written incorrectly. While the staff member was correcting the change and reprinting, we realized we didn't have the opportunity to share our wishes about how to divide assets, when our children could inherit, or other options because everything had already been decided by default and everything was already printed out. It literally was just filling out who we trusted for different responsibilities and that was it. No one at the firm had ever asked what types of bank accounts we had or what financial institutions we used, but at this meeting, the staff member asked us to verbally share where our accounts were and they hand wrote these onto a sheet of paper. I wish we were told ahead of time so we weren’t thinking about it on the spot.
We left the meeting happy to have a fancy looking binder, but didn't fully understand what the documents said and it felt like we were rushed out. We tucked our binder on the shelf and didn't give it much thought. A couple of years later, we bought our first home and did tell the realtor that the home should be titled in our Trust so I reviewed the binder a little bit at that time, realizing I wasn’t fully familiar with the plan.
A few years later, we decided to revisit our Estate Planning as I was feeling ill at ease that though we had an Estate Plan, it may not be sufficient. We got in touch with Liu Shair Law because we know several friends who used the firm’s services by this point. Shannon let us know from the beginning that the process would be several steps and multiple meetings, which included discussing our wishes, and reviewing it before we signed. We put together a list of all our accounts, which we discussed with Shannon several times. There was a meeting where we talked a lot about what we would want to happen in a variety of different situations. This really made us realize that there were many options that we could choose that we didn’t know about last time.
After we confirmed our wishes, we received PDF drafts of all the Estate Plan components through a secure client portal a few weeks later. It was good to see the drafts on our computer on our own time so we could take time to read and also make sure there weren’t spelling mistakes like with the last place. The drafts were long, but we had a call with Shannon to discuss each document, ask questions, and talk about what to do with our accounts. Even at our signing meeting, Shannon went through what to do about accounts again, letting us know that we could ask questions even after this process was done if we set up new accounts. It didn’t feel like we were just a number, which is how we felt with the last lawyer.
Though it was a little nerve wracking to have spent money on Estate Planning twice, it feels so much better knowing that this time, things are actually set up for us and we know how it all works. We know we’ll have to revisit this process when our kids are adults and we want to change things then, but for now, it’s such a relief to have our planning done well. If I had known then what I know now, I would have focused more on the process than on the price point from the beginning.