New Clients

Information for New and Prospective Clients

     After you have contacted my office to schedule a time to meet with me, you should receive a Welcome Letter and Questionnaire from my office prior to your initial consultation. This kit is designed to help focus your thoughts on the planning process, and to help me gather important facts. Please take the time to review these documents and bring them with you to your appointment.

      Expect to receive a reminder phone call from my office the day before your appointment. This is simply to confirm the time and date of the appointment, and to ensure that you are still planning to attend. If you need to reschedule your appointment, please contact me immediately so that I may rearrange our schedule and perhaps make an appointment more convenient for another of my clients.

     There is no need to go on a "treasure hunt" at this point for financial or legal documents, stock certificates or insurance policies. Sometimes we find clients procrastinate in getting their planning done because they cannot locate, or do not have time to locate, all of these documents. Truthfully, these documents will not be needed until later in the process. Instead, spend the time before your appointment contemplating the Three P's of Estate Planning.

Understanding the Three P's of Estate Planning

• #1 -- People
  Who are the Important People in your life?
  Beginning with yourself, they also likely include your loved ones: your spouse if you are married, children and grandchildren if you have any, perhaps your parents, siblings or other relatives. Beyond these, however, "Important People" also could include charities, special causes, colleges or universities, or churches to which you are committed. For some, "Important People" could even include pets. Spend some time thinking about the impact others have had on your life. Make a list and jot notes if you like. This is where the planning process truly begins.
• #2 -- Property
  By Property we mean your assets in general.
  Make a list of the assets you own or control. At this point, you do not need to identify insurance policy numbers and exact dollar values. Rather think through your assets in terms of their nature (cash, stocks, bonds, real estate, etc.); their value in thousands of dollars; and your ownership interest: Do you own assets in your name only, in joint tenancy with someone else, or through a trust agreement or some other arrangement? Be sure to include often-overlooked assets like life insurance (the death benefit, not the cash value), business interests, and any inheritance you may expect to receive.
• #3 -- Plans
  After identifying the Important People in your life and your Property, the next step is to consider the plans you would like to make.

1. Do you know exactly what would happen to your family if you did not wake up tomorrow?
2. Do you know exactly what would happen to your family if you became disabled?
3. Who will you need to, or just want to help, educate? When? And do you have your arms around what it will cost?
4. How and when do you see yourself retiring? What will you do, and what will it cost to do it - not just the day after you retire, but 10, 20 and even 30 years later?
5. Are your parents living, and if so will you be expected to contribute to their support at some point? And have you made any provision for the possibility that you may need nursing home or other care, late in your own life?
6. How important is it to you to be able to help your children and grandchildren financially - while you are still here, as legacies, or both? How do you plan to do it?
7. Is there an institution that you care deeply about - a church, charity or school, for example - to which you would wish to leave a meaningful legacy, assuming we could create a highly tax-efficient way for you to do so?
8. Assuming, as we have to do, that when you are gone, part of your estate will get taxed away, how do you want the tax to be paid? If you want the children to just pay the tax, might they be forced to sell something you really would not want them to have to sell?

     These are just a few of the issues to consider when approaching the planning process. They are much more important than the "treasure hunt" for legal documents at this stage.