Explaining how our firm helps build family wealth requires an explanation of what the “traditional” experience with a lawyer is like. If you’ve worked with a lawyer to prepare estate planning documents for you in the past, this will sound familiar.
During the traditional experience, you’ll go in and meet with a lawyer who will often make things seem very complicated and confusing. You’ll have a good idea that the lawyer is smart and seems to know what she’s doing, so you’ll nod and answer questions, as if you understand everything. Because you want to do the right thing for your family, you’ll have the lawyer prepare the documents for you and you’ll sign the documents, feeling relieved that you’ve got that taken care of.
You’ll take your fancy planning binder home, stick it on a shelf or in a drawer, mark estate planning off on your checklist as DONE and never think about it again.
You might remember your lawyer said something about moving your bank accounts into the trust. So you’ll go to the bank, forget what you were supposed to do, call your lawyer’s office, get a voicemail, 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’ll have gotten busy with other things and never get around to moving that bank account.
A few weeks later, you’ll get a bill in the mail for $67.50 for 15 minutes of your lawyer’s time for answering a couple of questions. You’ll make a mental note – don’t call the lawyer ever again.
Several years later, you’ll refinance your house or sell it and buy a new one and forget that you were supposed to let your 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Your children will get older, making your guardianship choices outdated, but you don’t want to call your lawyer because you know you’ll get a bill in the mail two weeks later.
You’ll hear something about a change in the tax law, but you figure you’d surely get a letter in the mail from your lawyer if it was something that affected you, so you don’t worry about it. And, you’d have to dig through boxes to find your trust documents so you could remember your lawyer’s name and find her contact information. Who has time for that?
It’s 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the binder you stuck up on a shelf several years before and never looked at again, that they’ll realize your plan is so outdated that it has nothing to do with your life, your assets and the law.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 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 This?
Because it has happened in my family and I swore it would never happen to my clients when I became a lawyer. And I’ve seen how easily it can happen just like this both personally and professionally.
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. It was designed to serve 70 and 80 year olds who were preparing for death.
Our Firm Helps You Prepare For Life
What makes our firm different is that we are here not just to create a set of documents you will likely never update or look at again, we are here to ensure your loved ones have someone to turn to when you are no longer here. And, to support you in planning for not just legacy (what you leave behind when you are gone), but for life as well.
We’ve been told by many of our clients that the experience of considering their own death before and during their Family Wealth Planning Session, in the way we take you through the experience, offers a deeper and better experience of life afterwards.
We understand you are BUSY, you are growing, you desire a life of prosperity and you value ease, convenience and efficiency. You want to know you’ve made the best decisions for your family during your lifetime and that your family will be left with ease and aware of your love by how well you prepared.
You want to make sure your children would be taken care of in the best way possible and will be properly prepared to receive your wealth, when it is time.
That’s our focus too. We’ve developed unique systems to give you the same access to a Personal Family Lawyer as was previously only available to the likes of Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and Sam Walton so you can have the guidance you need to build and maintain a life of prosperity and leave a legacy of Family Wealth.
Family Wealth is so much more than financial wealth. It really encompasses everything you care about even more than money, your values, insights, stories, experience — your intellectual, spiritual and human assets.
As part of our Planning process, we guide you to consider and plan for those most often lost assets. It’s baked in. We encourage communication with our clients. In fact, we’ve thrown out the time clocks so you never have to be afraid to call with a quick question (or even a not so quick question). Everything we do is billed on a flat-fee basis, agreed to in advance, so there are never any surprises.
We have a team to serve you. When you call our office to ask your quick question, you won’t have to wait hours or days for a phone call back. You’ll get your question answered, right away. And, if you need to schedule a more in-depth legal or strategic call with me, a call will be scheduled when we’re both available and ready for the call so we can make the very best use of your time and not waste your time by leaving voicemail after voicemail back and forth.
And, we ensure the most important details of your planning are followed through on and help you make sure your plan continues to work throughout your lifetime.
We’ve created unique membership programs to keep your plan up to date year in and year out as well as give you access to our Trusted Team of Legal Experts for guidance on legal or financial matters. One day you will need a lawyer. I don’t know why and I don’t know when, but when you do, you will be grateful you can call on us and we’ll be here to advise you, help you find the right counsel, or get you out of a jam.
And, as I mentioned, we believe your financial wealth is only about a quarter of your overall “Family Wealth” which is made up of your far more valuable, Intellectual, Spiritual and Human assets – who you are and what’s important to you.
Most lawyers only focus on transferring your financial wealth to the next generation; we focus on identifying and building your Family Wealth during your lifetime and leaving a legacy of love that goes far beyond money, after you are gone.
We’ve developed a tool that allows us to pass on your whole Family Wealth, including your Intellectual, Spiritual and Human assets. I can’t go into the details here, but we’ll definitely talk about when you come into meet with me.
We look forward to seeing you and caring for your family soon!
