What is “estate planning”?

Simply put, estate planning is the act of ensuring that your business and personal assets are handled or distributed according to your wishes when you’re no longer able to do so (e.g., upon your death or incapacitation).

What’s in an estate plan?

An estate plan is made up of a lot of moving parts. This is why it’s important to hire a competent and experienced attorney in the field of estate planning.

Here are just a few common examples of what you can expect to find in an estate plan for your personal assets.

• Revocable living trust.
• Pour-over will.
• Living will.
• Healthcare power of attorney.
• Durable power of attorney.

It doesn’t end there! For example, if you have minor children, a declaration of preneed guardianship for each child is recommended. If you have a child or other family member with special needs that depends on you, then you might need a special needs trust in addition to the revocable living trust.

Concerning business assets, however, the plans vary wildly. There is notably less uniformity on the business side of estate planning. Nevertheless, here are a few common examples of different solutions you might find in an estate plan for your business assets.

• Buy/Sell agreements.
• Voting trust agreements.
• Amended or restated bylaws, operating agreements, or partnership agreements.
• One or more holding companies.
• Retitling of certain assets.

Like the personal side of things, this list can get much longer. There are land trusts, offshore trusts, subsidiary companies, holding companies, family LLCs or limited partnerships, privacy-focused entities, and a whole host of insurance products that play major roles in the overall business estate plan.

Who Needs Estate Planning?

If you have more than a dollar to your name, you need an estate plan. The more dollars you have, the more complex your estate plan is. For example, your estate plan might only need to consist of a will. In contrast, it might need to consist of a combination of offshore trusts, holding companies, and insurance products. It just depends on the assets you currently own.

It’s not just about money. In fact, it’s less about money and more about those around you! If you’re married or have children, or both, you need an estate plan. If you have family members that depend on you for their medical or other needs, you need an estate plan. If you have employees, you need an estate plan. If you are self-employed, with or without employees, you need an estate plan.

Let me reiterate for the sake of clarity, if any of the above applies to you, YOU NEED AN ESTATE PLAN. I’m not only an estate planning attorney, I’m also a probate attorney. As a probate attorney, I can’t stress enough the importance of an estate plan. Without one, the potential disaster that awaits those that you love and depend on you, upon your death, can’t be exaggerated.

Do you need an estate planning attorney?

The short answer: YES.

Of course, I’m an estate planning attorney, so why expect anything other than a resounding “YES,” right? Here me out…

(Enter: “the long answer.”)

First, you don’t need an estate planning attorney to draft the documents needed to make your estate plan legally binding. You can go to a DIY website or buy one of those canned estate planning document bundles from your local office supply store. If you fill those out correctly, you’re good to go. (That’s a big “if” in most cases, by the way.)

Congratulations! You’re done!

“So, I don’t need a lawyer! I can do it myself!” say you. Well, not so fast. There’s more…

You see, you’re not paying a lawyer to prefill and print an off-the-shelf document. Rather, you’re paying a lawyer for his assessment, for designing an estate plan that he’s confident will meet your needs, accomplish your goals, and withstand both scrutiny and certain legal challenges. If it ends up that all you need is one will (which is rarely ever the case), great! But, who’s better qualified to make that decision? You, or the attorney that went to school for exactly that purpose?

In other words, you may not need an estate planning attorney for the purposes of gaining access to and using the documents that will ultimately put your needs and goals in writing, but you will absolutely need an estate planning attorney to assess which of those documents to use and which to disregard, and what to put in each those documents in case “the fit hits the shan”.

So, said long answer brings us back to the short answer: YES, you definitely need an estate planning attorney.