How To Select An Estate Planning Attorney - YouTube

hey so in this video we're going to talk about how to select an estate planning

attorney to work with so I'm Paul Rabelais I'm an estate planning attorney

I help our clients get and keep their legal affairs in order and look by the

way you can tune in to this YouTube channel every day at 10 a.m. Central

Time I'll be posting new educational information that you can soak in as you

attempt to protect what you have for yourself and your family and do it the

right way alright had a busy day today I got to

tell you you'll see the dark window over my left shoulder it's it's late at night

and you know just back to back to back to back to back all day today started a

couple of new probates on a couple of individuals who passed away last month

working with a family we had set up a living trust for a parent the parent

died the son was so impressed how things went smoke so smooth once the parent

died they wanted to set up their own trust so worked on that for awhile and

then another family who first words out of his mouth were I want to protect my

estate from the government I don't want to lose it if I go to a nursing home so

had that to deal with with another you know new client very fortunate very

fortunate to have just a phenomenal couple of people that I work with that

helped me get and keep all of these clients you know legal affairs in order

alright so let's get back to how to select an estate planning attorney to

work with I've had a couple of more than a couple of requests in comments to

other videos about suggestions on how someone can select or find or be

comfortable with you know an estate planning attorney so bottom line is

there's there's several factors that I'm going to go through that you should take

into consideration before you select an estate planning attorney I'm also going

to tell you I don't want it to sound like I'm Tooting my own horn

because you know I just don't want to sound that way a lot of the people who

will be watching this they can't hire me anyway because we get a lot of people

watching this you know from states where I'm not I'm in Louisiana a lot of people

watching this California New York New Jersey Illinois Florida but so so I hope

it doesn't sound like this is just a sales video on my part alright so let me

go through the factors that you should look at and I'm gonna be as objective as

I can so one of the factors that you should

look at is is does the attorney that you're considering working with to get

your estate and order do they practice you know regularly at a minimum if not

exclusively in the estate planning area in the estate planning area there are a

ton of little nuances and unless the lawyer works in that area on a daily

basis then it's likely that they may miss something so you want to work with

somebody who practices regularly or preferably exclusive in the area of

estate planning you know if they're also doing the the car wreck you know lawsuit

and they're doing the divorce and they're doing the commercial litigation

you know they're they're just not devoting perhaps enough time to helping

people get their legal affairs in order they may miss something all right second

thing is experience you know experience I think is is really necessary

in the estate planning area although I will tell you and there are a lot of

lawyers out there with a lot of experience that are just flat-out jerks

so experience isn't the only factor that you should consider but I know from my

own experience you know I went to law school and then after law school I went

an extra year master's degree in tax law and but really 95 at least percent of

what I know wasn't from law school it was from the years of experience of

people coming to me with objectives and problems and then

working with them to solve those problems and set things up in a way that

you know satisfies them so that all comes from experience so experience is

another I'd call it an important factor to consider when selecting an estate

planning attorney and and really not just experience in things like the

drafting of wills and trusts and powers of attorney that you know make the kind

of beginnings of an estate planning program but but also experience in you

know taxation so I had a client come to me last week said and said Paul I went

my dad and I went and saw this other attorney in town we just didn't get a

good feeling because we asked him about the tax consequences of certain estate

planning strategies and he said that we'd have to go talk to a CPA about that

so you know in estate planning you had a whole bunch of different areas that are

affected by getting you know setting up an estate planning legal program so when

I say they need to be well versed not only in wills and trusts and the

drafting of legal documents but they also have to be well versed in the tax

effect of all of those things and and really and when we talk about taxes

there's the there's the gift in the state tax there's the capital gains tax

there's the income tax there's the property tax and then another area on

its own is how retirement accounts are taxed at the moment that I'm making this

video six days ago our how how retirement accounts are taxed got turned

upside down so need to work with someone who's familiar with all of that not only

all of that but you need to work with someone who understands long term care

Medicaid eligibility and all the strategies that you can take affect I

find not most estate planning attorneys they they don't want to do that or

they're not familiar enough with it to give really good advice property laws

another area that affects estate planning and then of course probate law

is another area that affects estate planning so experience in all of those

things is really a must to get the kind of advice that you need another

area that is a factor is fees and then you know there's there's flat fee

lawyers and there's hourly rate lawyers and I would say fees is not the moat

shouldn't be the most important factor by any stretch in fact there's a saying

out there that says nothing is more expensive than a cheap lawyer so but but

it at least work with a lawyer who's upfront about the fee structure and how

that works so that you're not you know whammied or surprised at the end and get

a bill or a notice or an invoice that was completely from left field

unexpected so you need to work with a lawyer who's upfront about that and so

that's just another factor the lawyers education is another factor so you know

I would say it's not that the top of the list as far as the factors you know

whether the lawyer went to Harvard or whether he went to you know the state

law school I don't know that that really matters I would say experience matters

more than that are they polite are they prompt or they punctual that of course

is very important are they organized do they do what they say they're gonna do I

would say that's probably more important than than where they got their degree

from or you know how many letters they have at the end of their name so another

factor that I think is really really at the at the top of the list as far as the

importance of it is asking family friends neighbors and co-workers so what

what other people who have used a lawyer say about that lawyer I would you know

and their objective I would say that's you know high on the list so when you

when you talk to to neighbors and a co-worker and financial advisor a CPA

and your trusted colleague who you went to school with and they all say oh you

need estate planning you need to go see so-and-so because I

to so and so and I was very pleased with the results that I got so that that's

that one's up there okay and thence a few other factors that I think are

important these days you can research attorneys online and so it's it's pretty

easy for attorneys like myself to put information out there and again not

Tooting my own horn but when you go google an attorney if you see a lot of

content that was published by the estate planning attorney and that could be in

written form it could be in video form it could be an audio form in a podcast

but when you see a lot of content it's kind of like you can get to know that

attorney and form a perhaps a good feeling about you know whether you would

want to work with that attorney so if they if there's a lot of content

educational type content that's out there that's that's probably a good sign

because that means they take take their business serious and then you're gonna

want to you're gonna want to talk to the attorney and so I want to clear up what

I mean by that what I don't suggest you do is talk to twelve different attorneys

each one for two hours apiece and then make a decision that's that borders on

wasting too many attorneys valuable time but it is appropriate I believe to speak

to an attorney either in their office or on the

telephone not Tooting my own horn always preface

on that but on our website you know we have a where you can schedule a

15-minute call with me right there it takes you to my calendar and so make

myself available to do that but when you speak to the attorney it's real

important that you speak in precise terms and and tell them what you're

trying to accomplish so as concise and as clear as you can be on that that's

going to enable the attorney to get right to the point as to what you're

trying to accomplish and maybe give you some some potential strategies some pros

and cons of each so that you can get a good feeling about whether

want to move forward with that attorney now I will tell you when you do talk to

the attorney I hear from other clients who come in my

office they said they talked to an attorney and they they could not

understand what that attorney was talking about the conversation as the

client said was was over my head is what they'd say so when you hear attorneys

and you talk about estate planning and they talk in terms of bypass trust q-tip

trusts generation-skipping transfer tax q'bert's charitable remainder trust and

you don't have a clue as to what any of that is then you're probably not talking

to the right attorney they ought to be able to speak on a level that you're

very comfortable with and quite frankly some attorneys like to hear themselves

talk too much so if you get that feeling and you don't feel like the attorney is

a good listener and and question-asker then probably in the wrong office so

bottom line on all of that is need to need to trust your gut but you need to

take into consideration all those factors first and trust your gut now at

this point what I want you to do is make sure because I'm putting these things

out daily hit the subscribe button and the notification valve if you felt like

this provided you with some value give it a thumbs up and that way YouTube will

do its thing to notify you as more educational content comes out so I hope

that helps you you kind of overcome that procrastination I don't want the I don't

know how to hire an attorney to keep you from getting your estate legal affairs

in order so get this part behind you go seek out

the right attorney when you find one hopefully you can develop a really good

relationship that may may last a few weeks or it may last for many many years

and you'll have this part of your kind of estate program in place okay have a

great day we'll see you tomorrow take care