The Journey Of Creating Your Estate Plan
The 8-Step AEPL Client Path
In this post, I’ll explain the journey that many Americans take when they create their estate plan. So there’s a saying (it’s kind of an odd but common saying) that there are many ways to skin a cat, which generally means that there are many ways to achieve a goal.
And since each attorney or law firm gets to create their own process for helping clients create an estate plan, I can only accurately share the process that the clients of my firm go through. I have a firm called America’s Estate Planning Lawyers, and it’s unique because it’s designed to help our firm’s clients who live around the country by utilizing our co-counsel attorneys who are licensed all over the country, unlike most law practices that are set up to help people locally.
So at AEPL, we’ve created an eight-step predictable, thorough, but efficient process to getting and keeping your estate in order for a seamless transition to your desired beneficiaries. Here it is:
1. Questionnaire:
Click the link in the description below and take two minutes to request your no-expense zoom estate planning design meeting. We’ll review your objectives, as you document them on your initial electronic questionnaire, to determine whether it will be a great use of your time and ours to design your estate plan.
2. Calender:
You’ll be emailed a link to our online calendaring system to schedule your estate planning design meeting that will take place with me or one of the other attorneys at AEPL.
3. The Design Meeting:
An AEPL attorney will help you uncover your most important estate planning objectives and then guide you through your important estate planning decisions, including how you will leave your estate to your heirs, and who will play all those important roles in your estate plan, such as executor, trustee, and power of attorney agent. If you’re married and have children, you’ll be given easy-to understand options regarding how to leave your estate to your spouse and children.
4. Retain AEPL:
Electronically sign our fixed amount legal services agreement after having a frank and transparent discussion about AEPL’s fixed legal expense arrangements.
5. Your Digital Vault:
Securely enter important family and asset information in your client-friendly intake portal which is where all important asset information and electronic documents will be stored for easy access in the future by yourself, our firm, and your executors and successor trustees.
6. Review:
Once AEPL has customized all your relevant estate documents, typically including wills, trusts, powers of attorney, healthcare legal documents, and other necessary estate legal documents, review them with your AEPL estate attorney as they point out all of the customized provisions of your documents in your zoom video meeting.
7. Make It Official:
Make your estate planning documents official after AEPL ships you your portfolio binder of estate documents with sign-here sticky tabs which indicate where you, a notary, and witnesses will sign the documents to make them valid. With your living trust-based estate plan, you’ll also sign any necessary paperwork to transfer probate assets from your name to your name as trustee of your living trust.
8. Update:
Update your digital vault as you acquire or dispose of titled assets. Occasionally review your estate documents - either the physical documents in your estate planning portfolio binder, or the digital version that is uploaded securely to your digital vault. And if your life circumstances change in the future, such as you change your mind about how to leave your estate, or you wish to appoint different people to handle the settling of your estate, contact AEPL to make any necessary amendments.
Conclusion:
Now depending on the specific attorney or law firm that you work with to establish your estate plan, this process may vary. The only journey I can specify is our own. For example, most attorneys have not invested in this digital vault component of your estate plan. In addition, how an attorney handles this, what we call “Design Meeting” can and does vary wildly - some attorneys like to hear themselves talk too much, but at AEPL our secret sauce is in asking the right questions and listening to your responses, so we can ask the next right question.
But hopefully this post can help those who fear taking that first step to getting their estate legal affairs in order because they just have no idea what to expect. So if you’d like to sleep a little better at night knowing that your estate legal affairs are in order because you’ve been guided by an attorney well-trained in walking Americans through this process, click the link below to request your no-expense initial zoom estate planning design meeting. Have a great day.
AEPL’s Process to Getting and Keeping Your Estate Legal Affairs in Order.