When college students I meet find out I am an attorney, many seem to want to connect with me and tell me they want to be an attorney also. I would ask them why do you want to go to law school. Many times the answer is “to make a lot of money.” I often laugh at this concept, most of the time even to myself, and not out loud! Instead of laughing out loud at them, I will respond that there are better ways to make money, and that if their only motivation is money, you probably ought to pursue a different career path. In eighth grade I had a Junior Achievement business professional tell me … [Read more...]
How to Involve Family In Your Estate Plan – Get on the Bus
When I was a little kid, I used to sing the song, “The Wheels on the Bus.” I would sing about the wheels on the bus going round and round, the wipers on the bus going swish, swish, swish, the driver on the bus, and the people on the bus. When I became a parent, I sang the same song to my children, and we made up many more verses of the song. Family bonding over the song seemed like a good idea. I think my children have outgrown signing, “The Wheels on the Bus” by now, as they are a bit older, but I still think about that song and sing it when I see a bus driving in the rain. From school … [Read more...]
Making Beneficiary Designations Work for You
You spend hours setting up the perfect estate plan, and you are set up exactly the way you want. Everything seems perfect, and then it comes time to implement the plan. But wait, what is this? Your assets are transferring outside of the perfect plan? How can that be? What is going on? What happened? Is everything now ruined because of something outside of the estate plan? In my last blog, I discussed the four main ways that assets transfer - a will, a trust, a transfer on death designation, and a beneficiary designation - when someone passes away. Each method has a purpose, with benefits … [Read more...]
Estate Planning 101: The Four Methods of Transfer & Who Gets What
I am amazed at how often people want a will written to make sure their assets go where they want when they die, but have never considered what other methods of transferring assets exist. And...what different types of asset transfer options are available to use. These people want me to write a will to make sure assets go where the individual desires. At the same time, they want to know which document will win, a will, or something else. Although I would love to see the documents fight things out in a little arena of document battle, I am unsure how that would work, since they are made of … [Read more...]
How to Determine Mental Capacity for a Will or Estate Plan
Your mind matters! I often have people I meet who feel the need to apologize to me for not having created an estate plan before they met with me. Many times this comes from an older couple who realized that they should have planned sooner. I think I addressed that attitude in my last blog about putting things off until tomorrow, but I often reassure these types of people by talking about the two threshold requirement to put together an estate plan, as follows: You need to be alive. You need to be mentally competent. There may be a lot of other things that need to happen to set … [Read more...]
I’ll Get To It Tomorrow
As a child, I watched the movie “Annie” where the little orphan Annie sings the lines: “Tomorrow, tomorrow. I love ya, tomorrow. You’re always a day away.” Annie is singing about how the sun will come out tomorrow, and that she will have brighter prospects for her life in the orphanage because of the sunny day that will come. However, she makes an interesting point with the line “You’re always a day away.” Tomorrow is always in the future, as tomorrow refers to a future time, and once tomorrow gets here, we call it today. Tomorrow is an ever present barrier to getting an estate … [Read more...]
So, You Didn’t Have a Will? Now What?
Let me start this blog by being very upfront: I do not handle probate cases, and I don’t represent anyone in probate. However, I must know about the probate rules, and what happens in the probate process since I work to either minimize what goes through probate, or to make the probate process easier on those who stand to inherit property after someone has passed away. That’s what estate planning is all about - setting up a plan that is simple to execute once someone has passed away. If you want to avoid all of what you see below, set up your own estate plan. Sometimes the plan involves … [Read more...]
Where there’s no Will, There is a Way
When someone asks me, “Well, if I set things up right, I don’t even need a will or a trust, right?” I often wonder if the person asking the question wants an actual answer, or just wants me to agree with them. I think I understand what the person is asking, but I am not sure why someone would want me, an estate planning attorney, to simply agree that the work I normally do serves no purpose. Perhaps it is because people want to look for easy ways to do things, or they don’t want to be involved with the courts after a loved one or relative passes away. Or, perhaps people just don’t want to … [Read more...]
7 Reasons Why Estate Planning is Cool
I attend many networking meetings. At these meetings, I am generally invited to share a 30 - 60 second “commercial” of what I do and what I am looking for in a client, or a referral. I have several versions of this introductory speech, but one of them goes something like this, “My name is Michael Bailey, and I own and operate my own law firm. I practice in the area of estate planning law, which is dreadfully boring, but only when I am working there.” This generally gets me a laugh, and then I go on to explain that what I do is not necessarily exciting and fun, but rather, necessary. In … [Read more...]
Talk Among Yourselves: Why Professional Advisors Communicating Matters
Almost everyone has someone in their life who they look to for advice and guidance. Most people look at their parents this way (I certainly do!), but people also have other influential advisors -- whether it be a school teacher, church leader, business mentor or some other sort of influential advisor. These people help show us the way through life, and sometimes they are not confined to one category. I have a church leader who taught me lessons that transformed how I conduct my business, and that have led me to be more successful in service to my customers. I find I am able to pass along … [Read more...]
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