The LegacyBuilder™ Three Step Process: Estate Plans that Really Work!
Our firm’s attorneys use the LegacyBuilder Three Step Process™, partnering with clients and their financial advisors to develop personally counseled estate plans that go far beyond form documents. The attorney, client, and financial advisor then commit to maintain the plan through a formal updating and education process. Finally, when the time comes, the client’s family secures appropriate assistance from the attorney, financial advisors, and others to ensure that the client’s wisdom is transferred along with the client’s wealth.
Step 1 – Preparation
Develop your plan with counseling-oriented planning partners.
We fear that much of what passes for estate planning is little more than word processing! Most attorneys spend, at most, an hour or two with a client before drafting an estate plan. No wonder so many plans seem “cookie-cutter,” or “one-size-fits-all.” We don’t believe you should pay a licensed professional to do word processing. Their value is in their counsel and advice, based on knowledge, wisdom, and experience. If word processing is all you want, you may as well do it yourself! But if you want an estate plan that works, seek good counseling from an attorney who is willing to work closely with other professionals such as your financial advisor and accountant. We’ll spend multiple hours with you in a series of meetings to ensure you receive a highly customized and complete estate plan that contains your specific directions and desires.
Client Education
Our attorneys initially educate you about proper estate planning with critical background information prior to delving into the specifics of your particular situation. Education may include workshops, story telling, one-on-one consultations, books, and tools.
Data Gathering
We work with you to gather and organize information about the people you love and the property you own. Together we begin to develop your personal planning goals and the roles your helpers will fill to implement those goals.
Client Relationship Decision
You and your attorney determine whether to make mutual commitments and begin the formal estate planning process. Clear expectations are critical as we are about to begin a long-term relationship, and planning that could transcend generations.
Plan Design
You and your attorney assess and clarify your needs through in-depth legal counseling, and together you design an estate plan that will serve you and future generations as the foundation and guardian of your wealth and wisdom.
Financial Strategy Meeting (Optional)
During the plan design process sometimes financial strategy issues are revealed which need further exploration. Perhaps issues of life insurance or long-term care insurance have been discussed. At this meeting we invite your financial planner to present options and answer your questions.
Document Creation
Your attorney drafts documents in “plain English” that integrate your instructions with cutting edge legal counsel and advice. These documents serve as the written repository of your wisdom about your loved ones and the property you own.
Review and Delivery
You review your documents with your attorney and then sign them. Thus begins a lifetime planning process, as you have succeeded in creating living documents that contain your instructions for your loved ones.
Step 2 – Maintenance
Commit yourself and your family to a continuing maintenance and education program.
Because life continually changes, estate plans need to change as well. First, there is constant change in your personal, family, and financial situation. Secondly, there are constant changes in both tax law and non-tax law that impact your estate plan. Third, your attorney and other professional advisors are continually improving through ongoing education and collected experience. Since everything constantly changes, you cannot expect a plan to accomplish what it was intended to accomplish if it is never updated. Also, as your life changes your goals and objectives may change as well. The costs of failing to update are typically far greater than the costs of keeping your plan current.
Funding
You, our team, and your financial advisor work together to retitle your assets into the estate plan, to ensure that they are handled according to your written instructions. Since you will continue to buy and sell property and assets, this “funding” process must continue throughout your lifetime.
Updating
You, your attorney, and your advisors reevaluate your plan on a predetermined schedule to incorporate necessary changes. The funding of your assets into your plan must also be updated to reflect new or sold property and assets.
On-going Client, Family and Helper Education
Our firm and colleagues across the country in the National Network of Estate Planning Attorneys continually educate you, your family, and designated helpers about your estate plan. You will better remember the choices of your plan, and will maintain control by discussing changes in your assets, in the law, or in your life goals and values.
Step 3 – Legacy
Secure appropriate assistance to ensure that your wisdom is transferred along with your wealth.
It’s one thing to pass your wealth to the next generation. It’s a different thing to pass it along in an orderly and protected manner. And it’s yet another thing to pass along your wisdom, your life story and values, the stories that make family heirlooms valuable. A good estate plan will accomplish all of these things. By working with a team of professionals, your heirs will be able to receive their inheritance in a form that is protected from creditors and predators. In addition, you can structure your estate plan to provide in-depth instructions or commentary on those things that you believe are important for those heirs to know and do. Through our “Priceless Conversations,” we can also pass along your values and life stories in audio recordings.
Settlement
After your death, your attorney and financial advisors work with your survivors to appropriately assist in the transfer of your assets – as determined by your survivors and spelled out in your plan.
Wealth Reception
Too much focus on wealth transfer can overshadow the real planning needs that emerge as beneficiaries receive your wealth. Proactive planning anticipates these needs, and provides guidance and assistance to meet them, as well as any needs that aren’t anticipated. Strategies, such as Protective Trusts, leave customized instructions, individualized advice, and a process that makes the wisdom you accumulated over your lifetime available to your survivors as they receive your wealth. |
