How Our Firm is Different

How Our Firm is Different

In order to explain what distinguishes our lawyers, it is necessary to describe what the “typical” client experience with a lawyer is like. This will seem familiar if you’ve previously worked with a lawyer to create estate planning paperwork for you.

Traditionally, your experience with a lawyer might be confusing or complicated because they don’t fully explain the documents. You’ll have a solid understanding if the attorney is smart and seems to know what she’s doing, so you simply answer questions as you go along, as though you understand what they are saying. Your lawyer will prepare the documents for you, and you’ll sign them, relieved that you’ve gotten that done. You’ll take your documents home, place them in a drawer or on a shelf, check off estate planning on your list and forget about it.

You then recall that your attorney mentioned transferring your bank account into the trust. So, you’ll visit the bank, forget what you needed to take care of, contact your attorney’s office, get a voicemail and have to leave the bank to finish this another day. You may get too busy to go back.

A few weeks later you will get a bill from the lawyer for $100.00 for answering a couple of questions.  Several years later, you’ll refinance and sell your house, and after buying a new one, you’ll have forgotten that you needed to inform your lawyer to make sure the title was kept in the name of the trust. You hear that the tax laws have changed, but figure you would hear from your lawyer if it affected your plan. But you don’t hear from the lawyer.

Basically, you fall into a habit of avoiding the cost of your lawyer, and you don’t go back to make changes.

It won’t be until you are incapacitated or die, and your family finds the binder of documents, that your family realizes you have an outdated plan. Your family is at a loss. They call your lawyer who is happy to charge them to probate the estate you didn’t want going through probate in the first place.

How Do I Know All This?

It happened to me. I swore it would not happen to my children or my clients. I have seen how easily it can happen in my personal and professional life.

Unfortunately, I discovered that estate planning wasn’t able to support growing families who were experiencing major life transitions while pursuing success. It was designed for 70 and 80-year-olds who were preparing for death.

Our Firm Helps You Prepare for Life

Our law firm is not here just to write documents that you probably won’t ever look at or update again; our purpose is to make sure your loved ones have something to support them when you are gone. And, we wish to prepare for not only your legacy and what you leave behind, but also for your life.

We’ve been told by many of our clients that the experience of considering their own death before and during their Family Wealth Planning Session, in the way we take you through the experience, offers a deeper and better experience of life afterward.

We recognize that you are busy, growing, and want a prosperous life, and you value legal support that is efficient, convenient, and easy. You want to invest in your family’s future, and they will feel at peace by your loving choice to make all necessary preparations.

You want to ensure your children are cared for as best as possible and will receive your assets when the time arrives. That is our focus too.

We have developed special systems to provide access to a family attorney that used to only be available to the likes of Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and Sam Walton because you deserve outstanding guidance toward a prosperous life and leave of legacy of Family Wealth.

Family Wealth is so much more than financial wealth. It really encompasses everything you care about even more than money, your values, insights, stories, experience – your intellectual, spiritual, and human assets.

As part of our planning process, we guide you to consider and plan for those most often lost assets.

We prioritize client-attorney communication. In fact, you can call anytime you have a question since we don’t run on time clocks. We charge a flat-fee bill that you understand and agree to immediately so you don’t encounter surprises

We have a team to serve you. When you call, you’ll get your question answered right away. We uphold integrity and ensure all key tasks of your estate planning are completed and help you ensure your plan is updated accordingly throughout your life.

We’ve created a unique membership program to keep your plan updated a year in and a year out, as well as provide access to a dependable team of attorneys for assistance with legal and financial matters. At some point, you will need a lawyer, for any given reason, and I am confident that you will be grateful you can rely on us. We are here to provide advice, help you find the right counsel, or get you out of a jam.

Most lawyers only focus on transferring your financial wealth to the next generation; we focus on identifying and building your Family Wealth during your lifetime and leaving a legacy of love that goes far beyond money after you are gone.

We look forward to meeting you and supporting your family soon!

Andrea N. Heckman, Esq.

P.S. If You Think This All Sounds Expensive, You Are Right and You’re Wrong.

The Family Wealth Planning Session is worth its weight in gold because you will immediately feel clearer than you ever have before about what you really need and what you don’t really need when it comes to the lifelong well-being and care of your family. And, you will only choose to invest in work beyond the Planning Session if doing so would save your family more money than it would cost. Plus, we’ve made creative financing available to our client’s so it can be affordable to all who want to be well-prepared for a life and legacy worth leaving.