What to Expect From (and How to Prepare For) an Initial Estate Planning Meeting With Your Personal Family Lawyer

Whether you’ve met with an estate planning attorney before or it’s your first time, it’s important to understand how working with a Personal Family Lawyer® is different than meeting with a traditional lawyer.

This article will explain what’s involved with such a consultation, and it may even inspire you to meet with us to get your estate planning started or updated. If you do decide to meet with us, I’ll share instructions on how you can do that, plus include a free offer at the end of this article to give you extra motivation to check us out.

Given our unique approach, an initial consultation with our office is quite different than an initial consultation with a typical estate planning attorney. A typical “initial consultation” would be a meet-and-greet-type of meeting in which the lawyer tells you the documents you need to put in place and quotes you a fee to provide those documents. In such a meeting, however, it will likely be difficult for you to know exactly what you need for your unique family situation and how to make the right decision, outside of simply considering whether the cost of these documents fits within your budget or not. Unfortunately, deciding what you need based solely on the cost of documents will likely lead you to make choices that won’t actually serve and protect your family and assets.

In contrast, our initial meeting with you is a two-hour working session, called an Estate Plan Strategy Session. Prior to the Estate Plan Strategy Session, we’ll send you a personalized package of materials that will guide you in locating and listing each of your assets.

What we consistently see is that surprisingly, many people do not have a clear awareness of what they own or where to find their assets. This is the reason there are more than $58 Billion (yes, Billion with a “B”) of lost and unclaimed assets held by state and federal agencies. Oftentimes people become incapacitated or die, and their family simply overlooks these assets.

We know you haven’t devoted years of your precious time and energy to build your family wealth only for your heirs to lose track of it when something happens to you. That’s one reason the Estate Plan Strategy Session is so beneficial. Whether you decide to create a full plan or just redesign the one you have, at the very least your family will know what you have and how to locate it should anything happen to you.

Also during your Estate Plan Strategy Session, we’ll guide you through a complete understanding of what would happen to everyone you love and everything you own should something happen to you—whether it’s under your current plan or the plan the state has for you if you don’t have an estate plan yet. From there, you can decide if that plan is how you want things handled or if you’d want a different outcome, in which case we can design a plan to ensure things go exactly the way you want in your absence.

Finally, if you do decide to create a plan or redesign an existing one, you can select the type of plan you want based on the different packages we’ve created, which allow you to literally choose your fee based on what’s most important to you, what’s not important to you, and with a clear understanding of the impact of your choices.

The Estate Plan Strategy Session is a true educational opportunity for you to ensure you’re doing the right thing by your loved ones. This investment of your time now will save your family countless hours of heartache and work down the road, while also keeping them out of conflict and out of court.

Unfortunately, death is unavoidable. But you can make it far easier on the people you love by the choices you make now. And facing the reality of this fact today allows you to make choices that will let you enjoy your life even more. Indeed, our clients report a huge level of relief after meeting with us, and they frequently say they wished they’d done it sooner.

We’d love to meet with you for a Estate Plan Strategy Session. Normally, we charge $750 for these working sessions, but if you’re one of the first five families to schedule this month, you commit to doing the homework ahead of time, and you secure your Session with a credit card (which won’t be charged as long as you do your part), we’ll waive that Planning Session fee.

Simply give us a call to get scheduled. Or if you have a relative or friend who’d benefit by getting their affairs in order, pass along this article and tell them to call us. It’s our mission to keep the families in our community out of court and out of conflict, and it all starts with a Estate Plan Strategy Session. Because, really, your family IS worth it.

Suze Orman Says This is The Age You Should Retire–Not a Month or Year Before (and Here’s What She Misses)

If you’re middle aged or older, it’s likely that one of your most pressing concerns is not having enough money for retirement. And there’s good reason. According to the National Institute on Retirement Security, a full third of Americans between 55 and 65 have nothing saved for retirement.

And even if you’ve diligently saved, it’s difficult to predict if your savings will be enough. Today, many people are living into their late-80s, 90s, and even 100s. Because most Baby Boomers have lived comparatively healthier lives and had access to better healthcare than their parents, you may live even longer.

In light of these facts, a recent article in Money by renowned financial guru Suze Orman declares that the new retirement age for the majority of us is now 70.

While most plan to retire in their 60s, Orman believes this simply isn’t realistic anymore, not only because of increased lifespan, but also due to rising healthcare costs and the increased need to care for aging parents for longer periods.

Today’s eligibility age for full Social Security benefits is between 65 and 67. Of course, you can retire as early as 62 and receive partial benefits, but Orman says that claiming such partial benefits is “one of the biggest mistakes you’ll ever make.”

By waiting until 70, your annual benefit will be 76% higher, which will be hugely beneficial in the long run. Orman notes that for married couples it might be okay for the spouse earning less to retire at age 67, but the higher earner must wait until 70. The only exception is if one of you has a medical condition that prevents you from working or makes it unlikely you’ll live into your late-80s or 90s.

But delaying retirement doesn’t necessarily mean working full-time until 70. You might be able to work part-time or receive a reduction in your current job responsibilities. Orman says to start talking with employers about the possibility of part-time work or reduced duties at least two years before your planned downshift.

You also might consider switching jobs to something that requires less time and energy. Start looking now for educational and training opportunities to prepare for such a new position. Another option (and one Orman misses) is to launch a freelance gig, or “side hustle,” which is probably your best bet for a secure retirement anyway.

Instead of thinking about retirement as a time to retire from life and work, start thinking about it as the time you can finally do what you’ve always wanted to do. Create a service offering around the passion project you didn’t think you could indulge during your working years.

Dreaming into—and even taking steps toward this side hustle—now is the place to start, no matter how close or far you are from retirement.

Your life experiences were given to you so you can give them back. Begin to consider who needs to hear what you’ve learned throughout your life, especially during the hard times, as that’s likely to be the source of your side hustle.

While this all may initially add to your retirement anxiety, rather than reducing it, you don’t have to go it alone. With us as your Personal Family Lawyer®, we’ll be in your corner the whole way, offering guidance and support, while helping with any legal, insurance, financial, and tax issues that might arise. Schedule an Estate Plan Strategy Session today to see where your retirement planning currently stands.

Question: Does self care help you be a better parent? All parents have undoubtedly felt guilty at some point for not spending enough time with their children. A large part of this guilt comes from our culture. American parents are pressured to dedicate superhuman levels of time and energy to caring for their children to ensure optimal development.

This notion is so prevalent, it’s even garnered names like “helicopter parenting” and “intensive mothering.” Trouble is, this style of child rearing is extraordinarily taxing on one’s mental and physical health. Not to mention, many believe such obsessive control not only doesn’t work, but may actually harm a child’s development.

If you’re nagged by such guilt, there’s good news. Recent research suggests that worrying about the amount of time you spend with your kids is totally unwarranted. A 2015 study published in the Journal of Marriage and Family found that for children aged 3 to 11, there was no statistically significant association between the amount of time they spent with their mothers and their outcomes in terms of behavioral health, emotional health, or academic performance.

The study did find that teens experienced less delinquency when they spent more time with their mothers. However, this outcome occurred with teens who spent an average of six hours a week with the family—not exactly a massive commitment. What’s more, the study found when parents are stressed, anxious, and guilty, spending time with kids can even be harmful. Perhaps becoming aware of this now can let you off the hook and free up your time for self care first.

“Mothers’ stress, especially when mothers are stressed because of juggling work and trying to find time with kids, may actually be affecting their kids poorly,” study co-author Kei Nomaguchi said in an interview with the Washington Post.

As with everything in life, successful parenting involves finding a healthy balance between caring for your kids and caring for yourself. It’s vital—for you and your children—to develop a self-care routine that allows you to devote regular periods of time each day to relaxing and recharging your mental, physical, and spiritual resources.

There are countless self-care methods, but one of the easiest, least expensive, and most effective practices is mindfulness meditation. Although the word often conjures up images of monks, monasteries, and mountaintops, meditation is no longer the sole domain of celibate yogis and wandering ascetics.

Today, meditation is practiced by millions of Americans, regardless of religious affiliation or lack thereof. And it’s not just childless hipsters who meditate. Even the busiest parents are sitting quietly each day to reduce stress and cultivate mindfulness—the ability to maintain non-judgemental awareness of one’s moment-to-moment experience.

The reason meditation has grown so popular? It works. Dozens of clinical studies have shown that meditation offers myriad benefits: stress reduction, decreased emotional reactivity, increased relationship satisfaction, enhanced memory, sharper focus, and expanded cognitive flexibility.

Some of you are probably thinking you can’t possibly add another item to your daily to-do list; however,  meditating for just 10 to 15 minutes a day is enough to generate results. And once you experience meditation’s benefits, you’ll likely wonder how you ever got by without it.

Just ask Shana Smith, mother of two and author of Meditation for Moms and Dads: 108 Tips for Mindful Parents and Caregivers. Her book intimately details how meditation made her a better mother and kept her healthy and sane during parenthood’s most trying stages. Indeed, she believes meditation is not only possible for busy parents, it should be mandatory.

“If I forget to meditate, I’m much more likely to be overwhelmed by parenting’s physical, mental, and emotional demands,” she said. “With meditation, these demands are more easily kept in perspective within life’s bigger picture.”

Maintaining perspective on life’s big picture is a critical part of estate planning as well. During an Estate Plan Strategy Session, as your Personal Family Lawyer®, we’ll help you assess what’s most important for your family’s well-being and security and protect those assets in a comprehensive estate plan. To this end, estate planning—like meditation—can reduce anxiety and stress over your children’s future, allowing you to take better care of both your kids and yourself. Schedule online.

If you have pets, you probably want to make sure they are well-taken care of, if anything happens to you. Unfortunately, wishing for their good fortune isn’t enough. Too many animals are abandoned when their owners die and face rehoming, life in an animal shelter, or worse. Tip: create a pet trust.

To make sure your furry friend is taken care of when you become incapacitated or upon your death, you can leave assets for their care and custody. The best way to leave your faithful companion assets is to set up a pet trust.

Create A Pet Trust

With a pet trust, you can create certain rules for how the trust’s funds can be used. You can name a trustee—the person who will control and manage the funds—and a caregiver for your pet. By having a trustee manage the funds, you can be ensured the caregiver will only benefit from them if they are used according to the rules of the trust.

Another way people leave money and instructions for the care of their pets is with a will. But wills cannot ensure the funds are used in the way you want them to be, nor do they ensure the caregiver will care for your pet. A person who is left a pet in a will can turn around and leave the pet at a shelter and pocket the money left to them for their own use instead.

Leaving your pet assets is easy with a pet trust. But trust creation can be complicated, and working with a lawyer to develop the terms of the trust is highly recommended.

If you are ready to create a pet trust, start by sitting down with us. As your Personal Family Lawyer®, we can walk you step by step through creating a pet trust and other legal resources to ensure your loved ones are taken care of. Our Personal Family Lawyers® offer Estate Plan Strategy Sessions that help you protect and preserve your wealth for future generations. Before the session, we’ll send you a Family Wealth Inventory and Assessment to complete that will get you thinking about what you own, what matters most to you, and what your wishes are when you die. Schedule online.

Self-made millionaires are not uncommon in the dotcom era, but their fortunes pale in comparison to those of the ten richest families in America. These families weren’t overnight successes, but their fortunes have stood the test of time and are the result of strong family ties and very smart estate planning.

The Ten Richest Families in America and Their Rise To Riches

1. Walton ($130 Billion)

One of the richest families in the U.S. and the world, the Walton family enterprise is now in its third generation.

2. Koch ($82 Billion)

Despite contentious litigation over business interests between Koch’s four sons, the company still stands as the second largest privately owned company in the U.S.

3. Mars ($78 Billion)

The Mars family lobbied for the elimination of the estate tax, a key move considering the fortunes that can be nearly cut in half by the 40% estate tax.

4. Cargill-MacMillan ($49 Billion)

This family has 14 billionaires on the family tree.

5. Cox ($41 Billion)

Although the family got its start in media, diversification has helped the Cox family grow its fortune over the years.

6. S.C. Johnson ($30 Billion)

In its fifth generation of family ownership, this multinational brand is now a household name.

7. Pritzker ($29 Billion)

The Pritzker family is well known for its use of trusts to avoid taxes before it became common practice. Good planning pays off.

8. Johnson ($28.5 Billion)

The Johnson family holds a 49% ownership of this mutual fund company, with the founder’s granddaughter now at the helm as CEO.

9. Hearst ($28 Billion)

What started as a newspaper company passed from father to son in 1887 grew into the media conglomerate we know today.

10. Duncan ($21.5 Billion)

The Duncan family turned a $10,000 investment in 1968 into its current net worth of $21.5 billion. Not bad for a family enterprise.

6. S.C. Johnson ($30 Billion)

In its fifth generation of family ownership, this multinational brand is now a household name.

These families can help put your own financial trajectory in perspective. Are you on the right track? Are you making the most of your money? Significant wealth isn’t out of reach for even the humblest of beginnings; it just takes good planning.

If you’re ready to create a wealth plan for your family, start by sitting down with us. As your Personal Family Lawyer®, we can help you plan for your family. Our Estate Plan Strategy Session guides you to protect and preserve what matters most. Before the session, we’ll send you a Family Wealth Inventory and Assessment to complete that will get you thinking about what you own, what’s most important to you, and what you can do to make the most of your money.

The Pitfalls of DIY Wills: Lessons Learned from a Florida Probate Case

DIY wills are becoming more prevalent as legal services can now be accessed easily online. For better or worse, more and more people are turning to online services to meet their legal needs, maybe even you.

Here’s what you need to know before you decide to create your own will, using an online service, or even a cheap lawyer for that matter.

While these online companies are making legal services more accessible, they’re also doing their customers a disservice, as evidenced in the recent case of In re: Estate of Aldrich heard in a Florida appeals court.

Ms. Aldrich created her will using a downloaded template from E-Z Legal Forms without the advice and guidance of an estate lawyer. It appears that she wished to leave specific assets to her sister, and then to her brother, if her sister died before her. Her sister did die, after which Ms. Aldrich did not properly update her will.

The assets named in the will went to Ms. Aldrich’s brother, but the template she used did not include a residuary clause, which establishes where unnamed assets should go. There was no way for Ms. Aldrich to know that this was missing from the Will because she was not a lawyer, nor was she truly educated about such matters. Most people are not, nor should they be. As a result and without a residuary clause, the unnamed assets Ms. Aldrich acquired after the creation of the will passed under Florida’s intestacy laws and into the hands of her nieces, children of another pre-deceased sibling, instead of to her brother, as she seemed to have wanted.

This, of course, after a long, expensive and unnecessary court battle between the nieces and Ms. Aldrich’s brother.

Services like E-Z Legal Forms do not provide personal legal advice or ongoing legal support. Had Ms. Aldrich worked with an estate lawyer to craft—and then update—her planning, she would have left her brother an inheritance of love, rather than a nightmare of time, money and heartache.

This is an important lesson to learn because people too often create their will without having a lawyer review it and then forget to update it as loved ones pass on and new assets are acquired. In the end, their wishes aren’t honored because they weren’t clearly defined, leaving the matter in the hands of the probate court.

If you’re ready to develop a sound estate plan that will leave a legacy of true love, start by sitting down with one of us. As your Personal Family Lawyer®, we can help you with your legal planning needs. Our Estate Plan Strategy Session guides you to protect and preserve what matters most. Before the session, we’ll send you a Family Wealth Inventory and Assessment to complete that will get you thinking about what you own, what’s most important to you, and what you can do to ensure your family is taken care of.

Setting up a trust fund for your children can ensure that the money you are leaving behind for them is taken care for them, in the way that you want. But your efforts in completing this important, yet somber task can be ruined by making one of these common mistakes.

Leaving Assets Outright to Kids

One of the worst things you can do is to do nothing, which means that whatever you are leaving behind will go to your children outright, unprotected and directly to them when they turn 18. But, worse than that, it means that a Court will decide who handles the assets for them (and whoever is named as their guardian) before they turn 18. And, it’s very likely that those assets will not be used in the way you want. On top of that, if a professional Trustee is appointed, the costs of handling the assets could drain what’s left for your kids, quickly.

Not Carefully Choosing a Trustee

Even parents who do the right thing and set up a trust to hold what’s being left behind for their kids sometimes do not think carefully enough about who the Trustee should be taking care of the assets. Do you want one trustee or a co-trustee who can ensure the funds are well managed? Choosing more than one can provide some accountability for how the funds are used.

Not Properly Protecting Assets Left In Trust

Another mistake parents make when setting up a trust is distributing the assets out of the trust direct to their children at specific ages or stages, instead of holding those assets in a flexible lifetime trust that will protect their kids’ inheritance from future divorces, creditors or accidental lawsuits.

Unfortunately, most lawyers do not understand how to use trusts to establish this kind of vital protection for the inheritance you are leaving behind. And they may even suggest to you that it’s not necessary, if you have a smaller estate. I believe that even when you are leaving behind a small amount of assets, protecting those assets and teaching your children how to grow them (instead of squander them) can be the seed of a huge turning point for many generations to come. It would be my honor to share more about this with you during a Estate Plan Strategy Session.

Neglecting To Fix Beneficiary Designations

Lastly, make sure your insurance policies are directed to your trust and not directly to your children. This is a huge mistake we repeatedly see. Naming minors or even young adults as the beneficiaries of insurance and retirement accounts is a sure-fire way to ensure they are not used in the way you want and unnecessarily get stuck in a court process, which you can easily avoid.

A trust can both provide for and protect your children after your death, as well as ensure you are cared for the way you want in the event of your incapacity. If you’re ready to set up an effective plan for your family’s well-being and care, start by sitting down with us.  As your Personal Family Lawyer®, we’ll help you protect, preserve and enhance what matters most. Schedule online.

When you come into a cash surplus from a company bonus, a tax refund, an inheritance or something similar, you might find yourself having to decide what to do with the money you receive. So, what do you do when you’re faced with this difficult question: What to do with surplus cash: pay down debt, spend or invest?

Did you know that most people who win the lottery lose their winnings within 5 years? In fact, 70% end up bankrupt.

Why would that be? Well, it’s because they don’t know how to answer the question asked here regarding what to do with surplus cash. As a result, they make their investment and spending and gifting choices on their own with no guidance at all, and are surprised to discover how quickly millions can disappear.

So, let’s start there. Depending on the amount of your cash surplus, consider consulting with one or more trusted advisors on what to do with the extra money. We often act as objective counsel for our clients, so feel free to call to discuss options.

If it’s not a large sum, but you still want to make sure you are doing the right thing with the extra cash, consider these factors:

1. If you have debt that is higher interest than what you could earn with a fairly straight-forward investment, paying off your debt could be the highest leverage use of your funds.  Be sure to be tracking each of your debts on a credit tracking worksheet so you can see at a glance whether to allocate extra cash to pay down debt OR if you should keep that money in play because the cost of your interest is low relative to what you can be earning with other investments.
2. If you have a business that has additional capacity, and you know how to drive more sales with additional investments, you may want to put the money back into your business and ramp up revenue. Be careful though that you are not driving more sales without the capacity to deliver OR that you are not putting money into marketing when you don’t know how to convert your leads into buyers. If that’s the case, you may want to invest in developing sales systems in your business, which always pay off once you get it right. If you do have a business, you may want to inquire with us about an Estate Plan Strategy Session, if we have not looked at your business together yet.
3. If you don’t have debt, and you don’t have a business, you may want to consider investing in a business that you can run on the side (if you have extra time) as an additional source of revenue, diversifying your income and reliance on a job controlled by someone else. Side hustles are a great way to use your downtime to create more income for your family.
4. If you’re out of debt, don’t have a business, and don’t need a side hustle, consider maxing out your retirement account. And looking into turning your retirement account into a self-directed account, so you can use the funds in your retirement account to invest in things like real estate, or cryptocurrency, and use your extra cash + some of your time to start to get interested in the best ways to activate your retirement account rather than just having it invested in an ETF that you are totally disconnected from.

Finally, if you’ve got all that handled, consider a trip with your family of origin or your chosen family that will build and strengthen family bonds. Before you go, be sure to come in and meet with us for an Estate Plan Strategy Session to ensure all of your ducks are in a row, in case anything happens while away.

If you are ready to plan for your future wealth, start by sitting down with us. As your Personal Family Lawyer®, we can walk you step by step through creating a legal plan that will help you make great decisions during life by looking at what happens in the event of your death. Schedule online.

Yours, mine and ours … in today’s modern family, it’s oh so common. The blended family is the product of 2nd (or more) marriages, in which one or more of the parties comes with children from a prior marriage. And then, they may even go on to have children together. So, how can legal planning help build a strong blended family?

If you have or are part of a blended family, it’s important to understand how estate planning could be exactly what you need to keep your family out of conflict and in love, both during life, in the event of incapacity, and when one or more of the senior generation (read: parents) dies.

Let’s begin with an understanding of where potential conflicts could arise when you have a blended family.

If you have children from a prior marriage, and you become incapacitated or die, leaving everything to your new spouse or partner, there is almost certain to be some conflict (whether spoken or not) between your children and new spouse.

Your children may feel unloved, forgotten or resentful.

You may think that this can be avoided by leaving everything to your new spouse or partner, and then on his or her death, to your children. But this too could set up a scenario where your children feel the need to monitor your spouse/partner’s use of your assets, during his or her life. And that may not be what you want.

Conversely, you may have a partner or spouse that you have not planned for, who you would want to inherit some or all of your assets. But, as things stand right now, your entire estate may go to your children from a prior marriage. This could create a reality where your current partner even gets kicked out of the house you share, if something happens to you before your plan is updated.

You can avoid all of this (and even use the estate planning process to build stronger bonds) by having clear planning in place that has been discussed with your children and your new spouse or partner. We facilitate this as part of the planning process for all blended families.

You can avoid all of this (and even use the estate planning process to build stronger bonds) by having clear planning in place that has been discussed with your children and your new spouse or partner. We facilitate this as part of the planning process for all blended families.

If you are the child of a parent who has remarried or repartnered, after a divorce or death, of your other parent, you may want to bring these issues to your parent’s attention.

If you are ready to create a well thought out estate  plan for your blended family, start by sitting down with us. A Personal Family Lawyer® can help you plan for the needs of your unique family. Our Estate Plan Strategy Session guides you to protect and preserve what matters most. Before the session, we’ll send you a Family Wealth Inventory and Assessment to complete that will get you thinking about what you own, what’s most important to you, and what you can do to ensure your family is taken care of. Schedule online.