How Can You Decide Who Should Help With Your Will?
When considering the possibilities for planning your Will or Trust, you can consult many professionals besides an attorney. Some people in your business and personal networks can recommend the right specialists. Often, these referrals can lead to shortcuts in work because some professionals can cooperate and share resources with your permission.
What follows are trusted professionals who can weigh in on your estate planning:
Financial Advisor
You might have already talked to your financial or wealth management advisor about estate planning. Many financial planning specialists consider estate planning an essential component of their services. The attorneys on our team at Donnellon, Donnellon & Miller work with many financial advisors. We can develop an estate plan that works seamlessly with the strategies you and your advisor are building for your investments.
If your financial advisor does not have a specific set of attorneys they customarily work with, you might ask what legal team worked on their estate plans.
Estate planning does well with the decisions you make in your financial plans, whether they are for investments in real estate, mortgage refinancing, retirement funds, or other types of asset allocation.
Probate Court Clerk
If you know clerks employed in your local probate court, they likely have friends and acquaintances who work in estate law. This type of referral makes more sense in a smaller market where fewer attorneys may deal with probate and trust cases. Furthermore, the best estate attorneys tend to cultivate long-standing relationships with their local judges and court clerks, and these connections can prove very helpful.
City or State Bar Association
A formal bar association certifies and regulates all attorneys working in every state. Many of these organizations offer referral services or a comprehensive listing of state attorneys in estate planning.
Some counties and cities also maintain local bar associations. These could provide streamlined ways to browse a smaller, more local field of qualified professionals.
Other Lawyers
If you work with other attorneys regularly and have been happy with their services, you may want to talk with them. Attorneys can serve as a valuable resource for providing referrals or share experiences in preparing their estate paperwork.
The best attorneys usually have strong connections with other lawyers and firms. Since these attorneys do not specialize in the same types of law, there is generally no competition between them or concerns about conflicts of interest.
Seeking Help with Your Will or Trust
When meeting your prospective estate planning counsel, it helps to be prepared. This meeting gives you a chance to see the personality and approach of the attorney. You’ll also learn how many cases they’ve worked on that were similar to yours.
If you are doing nothing more than crafting basic Will, trust, or power of attorney documents, you likely wouldn’t need an attorney specializing in complicated family situations or estate tax reductions. An attorney with general experience in probate and estate planning should suffice.
You want to ensure the attorney will not only help draft the plans but also assist you in funding a revocable living trust. Much of this work involves re-titling your assets with the trust’s name rather than your own.
Contact Donnellon, Donnellon & Miller today to talk to an experienced attorney familiar with estate planning in Cincinnati. You’ll work with a caring professional who can answer your questions, prepare you for legal uncertainties, and represent your best interests.