HOW TO GET STARTED
Giving Your Family The Protection They Deserve
By now you have seen that we are different than your typical lawyer and because you love your family and want to keep them out of court and out of conflict when something happens to you, you are ready to take the first steps to get a plan in place.
You know your family deserves the kind of protection, guidance and love we provide for a lifetime.
Now, as you get started, it is important that you know how we work because we do things a bit differently here than at other law firms. That is why our clients love us so much.
Your Appointment Options
You have three options for your next step:
You can schedule a free 15-minute phone consultation to learn more about us and get a few preliminary questions answer.
You can schedule your Life and Legacy Planning Session and complete the pre-session homework so that you come in prepared to be educated, informed and make empowered decisions for the people you love. We recommend having two weeks between you receiving your homework your Session.
You can schedule your Estate Plan Checkup and Review if you have an existing plan.
How Long Is The Life and Legacy Planning Session?
We block two hours on our calendar for your Life and Legacy Planning Session and we can focus entirely on you and your family during this time.
In advance of your meeting, we will send you a package of information to review and complete before our time together, which will help you begin the process of getting your legal and financial life in order.
During your Planning Session, we will guide you to gently look at what would happen to your loved ones and with your assets if something were to happen to you today. And then we will look at what you want to happen instead and we will help you create a roadmap to get that plan in place as easily as possible.
After meeting with us, our clients routinely say “Wow, if we had known how easy this would be, we would have done it years ago!”
How Much Does The Life and Legacy Planning Session Cost?
Our Life and Legacy Planning Session is valued at $750, or if you have existing estate planning documents that you are wanting us to review and potentially incorporate, this meeting is valued at $950.
If during your Planning Session you choose to move forward and we help you design a comprehensive plan, your session fee is applied to the legal fee to create or update your estate plan. In some circumstances we will waive the planning session fee and instead you can secure your appointment time with a credit card number to hold your appointment time to the exclusion of others. This is done by completing your homework, which is essentially a list of your assets that you gather up ahead of time. You writing down your assets ahead of time makes the process of going through your assets more time-efficient for both parties. If you would like to complete the homework with an attorney during the Life and Legacy Planning Session the fee will not be waived.
So long as you keep your appointment time as scheduled, nothing will be charged to your card. If you must cancel less than seven days prior your appointment, we ask that you do so at least one week ahead of time so that we may open our calendars to other waiting families.
We understand that this policy of securing your appointment with a credit card may seem unique. So is our law firm.
We provide our very best service to those families who are looking for a long-term relationship with their trusted advisor. We expend most of our energy providing an exceedingly high degree of service to our existing clients and we limit the number of new clients we see each week.
What To Do Prior To Your Life and Legacy Planning Session
After scheduling your appointment, you will receive your Life and Legacy Inventory & Assessment (i.e. your homework) and other important information that you will want to review and complete prior to your personal Life and Legacy Planning Session.
Your Life and Legacy Inventory & Assessment is your pre-session “homework.”
We ask that you complete and return your homework to our office at least three days prior to your Planning Session so that we have time to review your information and provide the most valuable counsel we can during your Planning Session.
Feel free to call the office at any time if you need assistance completing your homework or if have any questions at all.
What To Expect The Day Of Your Life and Legacy Planning Session
On the day of your meeting, please expect to spend up to two hours with us.
We have two goals at our meeting together:
1
Identify whether there is a good fit between you and us.
2
Educate you about what would happen today if something happened to you so that you know how you can design a different plan if desired.
By looking at what would happen under your current plan, you can identify what you would want to happen differently. Then together with our guidance you can make the decisions necessary (including choosing your own fee) to give you the peace of mind of knowing your family would stay out of court and out of conflict when something happens to you.
Assuming there is a good fit between our firm and your family AND that you identify specific ways you would want things to happen that are different than what would currently happen if something happened to you, we can design a plan for your family right away. And remember, if you do not have a plan, the State has a plan for you, and you are probably not going to like it!
What Happens Next?
Once we have completed the design of your plan, we will review your assets for the purpose of ensuring that everything you own will be titled for maximum protection.
We will then schedule your Signing Ceremony for about a month later where you can sign your complete estate plan.
At your Signing Ceremony we have a process of reviewing your documents with you that makes your plan so easy to understand that you will know for certain that we understood exactly the way you want things to happen when something happens to you and that your loved ones will be in excellent hands with our firm.
Once you sign your your estate plan, your assets and your family are protected.
And we see this as only the beginning of our relationship. You may make changes to your planning documents at no charge for up to 90 days after you sign your plan.
Then at the final meeting during the planning phase of our relationship, we verify that all of your asset transfers are moving forward on track, whether we are taking the lead or you are taking the lead with our guidance.
We review your asset spreadsheet with you and ensure all of your questions are answered.
What Happens After I Take My Estate Planning Binder Home?
After you take your estate planning binder home with you, the maintenance phase of your plan will begin.
At no additional charge we will review your plan at least every three years and keep you informed about changes in the law and other issues that affect your family and your wealth.
If you participate in our Life and Legacy Membership Program, you will have an opportunity to review your plan every single year and enjoy a host of other amazing benefits like online access to your scanned estate planning documents, discounted or complimentary updates to your estate plan, and so much more.
Finally, we are always here for you and we do not charge you for phone calls or emails.
You'll be amazed at how easy and painless the entire planning process will be for your family and we would love to meet with you for your Life and Legacy Planning Session soon.