If you’ve never worked with an estate planning attorney before, the process can seem a little daunting. This is natural. Most people aren’t excited to sit down with a complete stranger to talk about their family relationships and finances. Knowing a little bit more about the process can help alleviate some of the stress, so before you arrive at our office, here are three things to know about estate planning.
One – Estate planning is not just for people with a lot of money. We work with families of all kinds – some are quite well off and others might have significant financial stresses. But the concepts that we talk about with our clients – who takes care of us when we’re sick, money goes when we’re gone, how we keep our families secure as we get older – are universal and don’t depend on how much money we have in the bank.
Two – We are not going to charge you more just because you have more. Our estate planning work is all done on a flat fee basis and that fee is based on the type of plan that we prepare for you. While it is true that some families with significant resources require more complicated (and therefore more expensive) work, we charge everyone the same prices for the same plans. For example, a family with a house and a hundred thousand dollars in the bank will pay the same amount for their joint revocable trust as a family with ten million dollars that also chooses to use a joint revocable trust.
Three – Your documents will probably be complicated and that’s ok – we’re here to help. If you’ve ever taken a look at a standard Will, they generally run about 6-8 pages and most of them are filled with bizarre legal terms that you’ve never heard of before. While we try to keep our documents as simple as possible, modern legal drafting is complicated, even if your family is simple. (Blame the lawyers – we do). But our job as estate planning lawyers is to guide you through these seemingly impenetrable layers of legalities so that, by the end of the process, you have a much greater understanding of what your planning actually does. If that requires multiple phone conversations, emails or meetings, great – we don’t charge extra to talk at any point during the process.
