Working With Professionals

     As an estate planning law firm, we work closely with other professional advisors, including Certified Financial Planner™ professionals, Investment Advisors, Financial Consultants, Insurance Professionals, Certified Public Accountants and Tax Advisors. We believe the team approach provides our clients with the most sophisticated, comprehensive, and effective estate planning possible. To that end, we encourage our clients to invite their Professional Advisors into the estate planning process with us. Once you have become involved with us in the planning process, we strive to keep you informed and involved at all stages of the estate planning process.
     We do not offer our clients any financial products, and we encourage them to contact their existing advisors, consultants and brokers, if in the course of the planning process, we see a need for additional insurance products, annuities or other financial products.

The Process

• Step One: The Initial Consultation
  We offer all prospective clients a complimentary initial consultation. With the clients' permission, we encourage you to attend this initial consultation as well. If this cannot be arranged, we will seek the clients' permission to discuss their estate planning with you afterward.
  
  During this first meeting, Tom will spend approximately an hour with your clients. After listening to your clients' needs, plans and goals and reviewing with them, their family and financial situation, Tom will generally make some estate planning recommendations. If the situation is complex, he may ask for a follow-up meeting to present a summary and specific recommendations and alternatives.
  
  After making his recommendations and reviewing options, Tom will quote a flat fee for design, drafting and implementation of the plan. Your clients then may choose to engage our firm by signing an engagement letter which defines the documents to be produced to implement the plan and fixes the agreed fee for services. In some cases, the client may not be ready to make a decision, and they may choose to take some time to reflect before moving ahead or they may choose not to proceed at this time. In the latter case, there is never any fee or other obligation.
  
  
• Step Two: Signing the Documents
  Should your clients choose to engage our firm at this point, we will prepare the documents necessary to implement the plan and send them out in draft form to the client for review and approval. A follow-up meeting to sign documents and begin implementation of the plan will then be scheduled ... normally within about two weeks from the initial meeting, depending upon the time taken for review of the the documents. Depending upon the complexity of the plan, the signing conference may become quite lengthy, as Tom will thoroughly explain the planning documents to your clients, and to their family members if necessary. If a living trust is part of the plan, he also will explain the trust funding process and provide comprehensive written funding instructions. Typically, we will assist in funding the trust by preparing one or more deeds and other transfer documents and providing letters of instruction to banks, stock brokers and the like.
  
  
• Step Three: Follow-Up
  Each of our estate planning clients will receive a subscription to Pocket Watch®, our estate planning newsletter. Through the newsletter we attempt to keep our clients informed of changes that could affect their planning and to help them maintain an awareness of their estate planning goals. In this manner we hope to ensure that our clients' plans are never out-of-date with their current needs and goals.

Resources

• Client Education
  Please visit our Resource Center & FAQs page for an online library of articles on issues related to estate planning. We have posted a number of articles suitable for use as hand-outs to your clients.
• Joint Marketing
  We are happy to work with you to speak to your clients or prospects on estate planning issues, including basic estate planning, charitable giving strategies, generation-skipping and other advanced topics, business succession, or asset protection. Please call the office at (402) 391-2400 or submit the form below if you would like to plan a workshop.
• Pocket Watch® Subscription
  Each month we produce Pocket Watch®, a newsletter on estate planning issues. To subscribe to the newsletter, simply submit the following form and we will add you to our monthly Pocket Watch® mailing list.
• The FAX on Estate Planning Issues
  Each month we produce a one-page FAX update on estate planning issues, exclusively for professional advisors like yourself. To subscribe to the FAX simply submit the following form and we will add you to our monthly FAX list. The FAX can be sent directly to your fax machine or to your email address. Complete the form below and verify your preferred distribution method.

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