Planning your affairs for the future is an intensely personal process.  As such, it is important to work with someone you can confide in and trust to create the best plan for you and your family.  I see my job as listening to my clients’ needs, explaining options for meeting those needs, working with clients to pick the best plans for their needs, making sure they understand those plans, and helping them execute their plans.

In the rush to complete documents and serve more clients, I have seen some estate planning lawyers skip one or more of those steps, resulting in unhappy clients who are frustrated with the whole estate planning process.  I recently read an article* about clients who spend lots of money on estate plans that they never end up executing.  Studies show that the planning was derailed because it did not meet the clients’ objectives and most families felt uncomfortable with the attorney they had retained.  The lawyers often did a poor job of explaining the legal concepts involved of how the plan met the clients’ needs.  Additionally, the lawyers were perceived as arrogant!  It’s no surprise that the client relationship and the estate plan went awry.

I also help clients through the probate process when a loved one passes away.  Obviously, that can be a challenging time for clients, so I try to make the process as clear and easy as possible.  Unless clients have already been through the probate process with another family member, they are often anxious about how to proceed and unsure of what is involved.  My goal is to make the estate planning process, as well as the probate process, comfortable and accessible from start to finish. 

*“Split Decision” by Russ Alan Prince and Hannah Shaw Grove, Worth magazine, October 2007, p. 82.