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As we head into the peak of wedding season, if you are a newlywed or are about to tie the knot, add “estate planning” to your do list. And yes, we imagine that at this happiest time of your life, planning for your potential incapacity and eventual death is probably the farthest thing from your mind right now, but getting it handled as part of your wedding planning is the greatest gift you can give your soon-to-be spouse.

First, be aware of the impact of doing nothing. If you were to become hospitalized for any reason prior to your marriage day, the person you love most in the world would not have the legal authority to make your medical decisions and may not even have the authority to see you in the hospital. Your beloved would have no access to your bank accounts and could even be put into a position of having to move out of your shared home abruptly in the event of your death.

If the idea of these potential realities is terrifying to you, call us today to get a “pre-marriage” plan in place, and then, after your marriage, we can update it.

Indeed, once your marriage is official, your relationship becomes entirely different from both a legal and financial perspective. With this in mind, if you’ve recently said “I do” or have plans to do so in the near future, here are six essential items you need to address in your plan.

1. Beneficiary Designations

One of the easiest—and often overlooked—estate planning tasks for newlyweds is updating your beneficiary designations. Some of your most valuable assets, such as life insurance policies, 401(k)s, and IRAs, do not transfer via a will or trust. Instead, they have beneficiary designations that allow you to name the person (or persons) you’d like to inherit the asset upon your death.

You should name your spouse as your primary beneficiary (if that’s your wish), and then name at least one contingent, or alternate, beneficiary in case your spouse dies before you. And if you have kids, remember to never name a minor child as a beneficiary of your life insurance or retirement accounts, even as a contingent beneficiary.

If a minor is listed as the beneficiary, the assets would be distributed to a court-appointed custodian, who will be in charge of managing the funds until the child reaches the age of majority, at which point all benefits are distributed to the beneficiary outright.

If you want your child to inherit your life insurance or retirement account, you should set up a trust to receive those assets instead. And if you have significant retirement account assets, you may not even want those assets to go outright to your spouse (or future spouse), but instead, you may want to use a trust to distribute your retirement account assets. If you don’t want your retirement assets to go outright to your named beneficiaries and want them to have the maximum tax advantages, contact us for a Family Wealth Planning Session™.

2. A Will

A last will and testament allows you to designate who should receive your assets upon your death. If you are newly married, you likely want your spouse to receive most, if not all, of your assets, and if so, you should name him or her as the primary beneficiary in your will.

Although your spouse would likely inherit all of your assets should you die without a will, known as dying intestate, depending on state law and whether or not you have children, your assets may not get divided according to your wishes, so it’s always a good idea to create a will (or update your old one) when you get married. And to ensure that your will is created and executed properly, you should always work with trusted legal counsel like us, and never rely on generic, fill-in-the-blank documents you find online.

Trust us—you don’t know what you don’t know here. Online legal document services may be better than nothing for some people, but they may actually be worse than nothing for those who truly want to ensure they’ve considered all of the options. For instance, an online document service cannot help you anticipate and plan for all the potential issues related to your family dynamics and assets that can arise and lead to conflicts and disputes between your loved ones. Yet that’s exactly what you would get when you work with a trusted legal advisor like us and use our comprehensive inquiry process.

Additionally, if you intend to leave assets to someone other than your spouse in your will, or for some reason plan to leave your spouse out of your will, be sure to check our state’s laws governing marital property. In some states, a surviving spouse is entitled to a certain percentage of your assets regardless of what’s in your will. Consult with us, your Personal Family Lawyer®, for clarification on our state’s marital property laws.

Finally, although a will is an essential part of nearly every estate plan, as you’ll see below, having a will alone is rarely enough to ensure your spouse and other loved ones stay out of court and out of conflict when something happens to you.

3. A Trust

Upon your death, assets included in a will must first pass through the court process known before they can be transferred to your spouse or any other beneficiary. Take months or even years to complete, and it can even sometimes lead to ugly conflicts between your spouse and other family members. Not to mention, your spouse will likely have to hire an attorney to represent him or her during, which can result in significant legal fees that can deplete your estate.

Furthermore, a will only governs the distribution of your assets upon your death. It offers you zero protection if you become incapacitated and are unable to make decisions about your own medical, financial, and legal needs. If you become incapacitated with only a will in place, your spouse would have to petition the court to be appointed as your guardian to manage your affairs.

Here’s the bottom line: If your estate plan consists of a will alone, you are guaranteeing your spouse and family will have to go to court if you become incapacitated or when you die.

To avoid the time, cost, and conflict inherent to an estate plan consisting solely of a will, you should consider creating a revocable living trust, along with your will. If your assets are properly titled in the name of your living trust, they would pass directly to your spouse upon your incapacity or death, without the need for any court intervention.

What’s more, in the terms of your trust, you can even outline the specific conditions that must be met for you to be deemed incapacitated, which would allow you to have some control over your life in the event you become incapacitated by illness or injury. This is in contrast to a will, which only goes into effect upon your death and then merely governs the distribution of your assets.

Finally, if you are getting married and have minor children from a previous marriage, there is an inherent risk of conflict between your soon-to-be new spouse and your children because your children and new spouse have conflicting interests about what happens to your assets in the event of your death or incapacity. If you want to ensure a lifelong relationship of harmony and ease between your children and your soon-to-be spouse, or new spouse, contact us—we have very specific strategies we can use to support that outcome.

If you are soon-to-be-married or recently married and anything in this article makes you realize that estate planning isn’t something to put off, but a huge gift to the people you love, contact us to schedule a Family Wealth Planning Session™. This is the first step in considering all of your assets, all of your family dynamics, and getting clear on the right plan, at the right price, for the people you love.

Next week, we’ll continue with part two in this series on six estate planning essentials for newlyweds.

Proper estate planning can keep your family out of conflict, out of court, and out of the public eye. If you’re ready to create a comprehensive estate plan, contact us to schedule your Family Wealth Planning Session. Even if you already have a plan in place, we will review it and help you bring it up to date to avoid heartache for your family. Schedule online today.

Wills, trusts, health care directives, powers of attorney, and legal guardian nominations are on many of our hearts and minds as COVID-19 compels us to face our own fragility and mortality.

It’s not as if we didn’t know we would all die (or become incapacitated) one day, but within our current reality, that “one day” has become an ever more real possibility. And one way to feel more in control over what’s happening out there is to make sure we all have our legal affairs in order at home. That way, if it does happen now, our families aren’t left with a big mess to clean up while they are grieving.

If you are trying to get your financial house in order right now, you may be just getting some basic documents in place. You may even be doing it yourself.

If that’s the case, it’s very important for you to know that the cost of a failed plan can be very high for the people you love. Plus if your documents are not properly signed, they will not work—period. End of story. And if your documents don’t work, your family could be stuck in court or conflict, which is probably the exact thing you want to avoid by handling your estate planning now.

There are many ways that plans fail, but one of the worst ways we see is when someone starts a plan and doesn’t get it signed properly. You do not want this to happen to your family, trust me. If you care enough about estate planning, you will want to make sure your plan will work when your family needs it.

That means you need to make sure your legal documents are actually signed, and signed in the right way. Some legal documents require two witnesses and some require notarization; however, in today’s social-distancing reality, these signatures could be difficult to come by. Some states have allowed remote notarization, others have not.

While we understand you likely have a desire to get documents in place now, we also believe there is going to be a significant increase in conflict and litigation as a result of DIY estate planning documents. Let’s keep that from happening to the people you love. If you want to get your plan done the right way, contact us and let’s have a 15-minute conversation about your next steps.

Proper estate planning can keep your family out of conflict, out of court, and out of the public eye. If you’re ready to create a comprehensive estate plan, contact us to schedule your Family Wealth Planning Session. Even if you already have a plan in place, we will review it and help you bring it up to date to avoid heartache for your family. Schedule online today.

Signed into law on March 11th, President Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARP) is the largest direct-to-taxpayer stimulus legislation ever passed, and it came just in time to save millions of Americans whose unemployment benefits were about to expire. In addition to extending unemployment relief, the ARP provides individual taxpayers and small business owners with a number of other vital financial benefits aimed at helping the country rebound from last year’s economic downturn.

Of these benefits, you’ve likely already seen one of the ARP’s leading elements—the $1,400 direct stimulus payments, which went to taxpayers, children, and nonchild dependents with incomes of less than $75,000 for individuals and $150,000 for joint filers. But beyond the stimulus, the ARP comes with numerous other provisions that can seriously boost your family’s finances for 2021.

To highlight the ways the ARP can impact your family’s wallet, here we’ll break down six of the legislation’s key elements. To learn about all the full array of benefits provided by the ARP, meet with us, as your Personal Family Lawyer®.

1. Child Tax Credit

If you have minor children, the ARP enhances the Child Tax Credit (CTC) in some major ways. Not only does it significantly increase the amount of the credit, but it also changes the way you can receive the money.

Under the current CTC, parents can receive a maximum tax credit of $2,000 for each qualifying child under age 17, with $1,400 of that credit being refundable. The ARP increases that credit to $3,000 a year for each child aged 6 to 17 and $3,600 for each child under 6—and both amounts are fully refundable.

Parents who qualify for the full amount of $3,000 or $3,600 per child include single filers earning less than $75,000, and joint filers earning less than $150,000 annually. After this, the credit begins to phase out. However, parents who file singly and earn less than $200,000 ($400,000 for joint filers) could still claim the original $2,000 credit.

In addition to increasing the credit, the ARP also changes the way parents can access the money. Instead of applying the full amount of the credit to your income taxes at the end of the year and possibly getting a refund, you can now opt to receive the credit up front in monthly payments of $250 per qualifying child or $300 for children under age 6.

This means you can get half of the credit in the form of monthly cash payments and claim the other half when you file your 2021 taxes in April 2022. If you opt for the monthly payments, the IRS expects to send those out starting in July 2021 and lasting through December 2021. The ARP directs the Treasury Department to create an online portal that allows parents to opt out of advance payments and report any changes in income, marital status, or number of eligible children.

Note that these increases are only in effect for 2021 and will revert back to the original amounts in 2022. However, there’s currently support in both Congress and the White House for making them permanent. Check our weekly blog and IRS.gov for updates to the legislation.

2. Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit

In order to provide financial assistance to those families who pay for child care or care of an adult dependent, such as an elderly parent, the ARP increases the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit for 2021—and for the first time, it makes the credit refundable.

For 2021, the ARP provides a tax credit for the expenses associated with the care of qualifying dependents (kids 12 or younger or a disabled adult) for a total of up to $4,000 for one dependent and $8,000 for two or more dependents. This is an increase from the max credit amounts for 2020, which are $3,000 for a single dependent and $6,000 for multiple dependents.

The IRS allows you to claim a fairly wide range of qualified expenses for such care, including the following:

• Daycare
• Babysitters, as well as housekeepers, cooks, and maids who take care of the child
• Day camps and summer camps (overnight camps are not eligible)
• Before and after-school programs
• Nursery school or preschool
• Nurses and aides who provide care for a disabled dependent

The ARP also makes more people eligible for the credit by raising the income limit for the full credit from $15,000 to $125,000 per year. Those making between $125,000 and $400,000 are eligible for a partial credit.

As an added bonus, the credit is fully refundable for 2021, so you could get a refund for the credit even if your tax bill is zero. However, as with the changes to the Child Tax Credit, these updates are only available in 2021, unless additional legislation is passed.

There are special rules for divorced couples looking to claim the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit, so if that’s you, meet with usor a financial advisor for support.

3. Earned Income Tax Credit

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is a refundable tax credit for low- and middle-income workers that’s frequently overlooked—and the ARP makes the credit more valuable for many taxpayers in 2021 than ever before. The amount you can claim for the EITC depends on your annual income and the number of kids you have, but people without kids can qualify, too.

For 2021, the ARP revises a number of EITC rules, and makes an increased credit available to more childless taxpayers. While in past years, childless filers could only qualify for a relatively small credit, for 2021 the ARP boosts the maximum EITC for those without children from around $540 to just over $1,500.

The legislation also reduces the minimum age for a childless taxpayer to qualify, from 25 to 19, and it also eliminates the maximum age of 65 for the credit, so seniors of any age can qualify, as long as they meet the income requirements. The above changes from the ARP are only for 2021, but the law makes some permanent changes to the EITC as well.

In prior years, you couldn’t qualify for the EITC if you had more than $3,650 in investment income for the year. But thanks to the ARP, starting in 2021, you can have up to $10,000 of such “disqualified” income without losing the EITC, and for 2022 and beyond, this limit will remain and be adjusted for inflation.

Below are the maximum EITC amounts for 2021, along with the maximum income you can earn before losing the credit altogether.

2021 Earned Income Tax Credit

Additionally, just for 2021, you can calculate your EITC using either your 2019 earned income or your 2021 earned income and use whichever number gets you the bigger credit. And don’t worry—if you go with the 2019 number, it has no effect on any of your other 2021 tax calculations. For example, if some or all of your income is from self-employment, using your 2019 income to calculate your 2021 EITC won’t increase your 2021 self-employment tax.

Finally, no matter the year, the EITC is fully refundable. This means you can collect the money even if you don’t owe any federal income tax. That said, calculating the credit can be quite complicated, so if you need a referral to a CPA to support you, please feel free to contact us for our favorite referrals.

Next week, we’ll cover the remaining three ways the American Rescue Plan can boost your family’s finances in 2021.

Proper estate planning can keep your family out of conflict, out of court, and out of the public eye. If you’re ready to create a comprehensive estate plan, contact us to schedule your Family Wealth Planning Session. Even if you already have a plan in place, we will review it and help you bring it up to date to avoid heartache for your family. Schedule online today.

As the host of the wildly popular The Joy of Painting TV series on PBS, Bob Ross became a pop-culture icon, who was equally famous for his giant head of hair, soothing baritone voice, and folksy demeanor as he was for his iconic landscape paintings. And like so many other artists, Bob’s artwork and image would become even more popular following Bob’s death in 1995.

Bob’s philosophy in both painting and life was that there “were no mistakes in life… just happy little accidents.” Sadly, as detailed in the recent Netflix documentary Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed, Bob’s failure to coordinate his business agreements with his estate plan was anything but happy, leaving his only son largely unable to benefit from his father’s fame and fortune.

As we’ll discuss in this series, Bob’s planning failures have led to an ugly court battle between his former business partners and his family, who were fighting for control of the lucrative intellectual property rights to the Bob Ross brand. And while Bob’s son Steve ultimately lost his fight to benefit from the business empire built on his father’s persona and painting skills, we’ll explain the steps you can take to ensure that your loved ones don’t suffer the same fate and are able to fully benefit from all of your business assets following your death.

After meeting Bob at one of his early in-person painting classes, husband and wife duo Walter and Annette Kowalski convinced Bob to go into business with them, launching Bob Ross Inc. (BRI) in 1985. According to the Daily Beast, the corporation, which was formed in Virginia, initially consisted of four equal partners: Bob Ross and his wife Jane Ross, along with Walter and Annette.

With the Kowalski’s financial backing, BRI’s initial business model had Bob teaching a series of in-person painting classes up and down the U.S. east coast at which they sold painting supplies and art instruction manuals. But after signing on with PBS for The Joy of Painting series and launching their own line of Bob Ross-brand painting and art supplies, business began to take off.

From 1986 through 1994, BRI registered several trademarks using Bob Ross’ name and likeness, and the company also signed several licensing agreements with third parties, all with Bob’s consent. All four individuals—Bob, Jane, Walter, and Annette—were technically equal partners in the corporation, but it was widely acknowledged that Bob was the one in charge, as well as the one with the talent and the face of the brand.

In fact, when The Joy of Painting became one of PBS’s top-ranked shows at the close of the 1980s, the frizzy-headed artist grew into a bona-fide celebrity. Bob made appearances on popular talk shows of the day like Regis and Kathy Lee and Donahue, and Bob was also a featured star at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. At the peak of his fame, Bob even had plans to launch his own musical based on his TV show.

The success of the show and Bob’s fame boosted sales of Bob Ross art supplies, which branched out to include books and videos in addition to the paints and brushes adorned with Bob’s name and likeness. BRI eventually started offering painting workshops around the U.S., with teachers trained in Bob’s method doing the instruction.

All of this translated to significant financial success for the company. Based on records made public during the lawsuits over Bob’s estate, BRI was bringing in roughly a half-million dollars each year for the four partners to share, according to the Daily Beast. But the good times wouldn’t last.

Things started to go downhill in 1992 when Bob’s wife Jane passed away from cancer. Following her death, the structure of BRI required that Jane’s share in the company be divided equally among the surviving three partners. As a result, Bob was reduced to owning just one-third of the company that bore his name and likeness. This was likely not understood by the Ross’s when they signed their partnership agreements.

Shortly after Jane’s death, Bob developed lymphoma. In 1994, while battling cancer, the Kowalskis offered Bob a deal. They reportedly faxed him an agreement that would give them all of Bob’s intellectual property rights as well as all of his artistic works. In return, the Kowalskis would pay Ross or his surviving heirs 10% of BRI’s profits,  but only for the next 10 years.  After 10 years was up, the Kowalskis would own all income from Bob Ross, Inc—forever.

Not surprisingly, Bob refused to sign the agreement, and he was reportedly infuriated that the Kowalskis would even ask him to sign such a one-sided deal. In an attempt to protect his rights to his business and intellectual property assets, Bob made several last-minute changes to his estate plan. The most notable change was made to Bob’s trust just two months before his death.

In the amendment to the Bob Ross Trust, Bob added a clause that specified that all intellectual property rights to Bob’s “name, likeness, voice, and visual, written, or otherwise recorded work” would pass to his son, Steve, and Bob’s half-brother, Jimmie Cox. Specifically, Bob assigned 51% of the interest to all of his intellectual property to Jimmie and 49% to Steve.

Oddly, though Bob’s estate plan specifically left his intellectual property to Steve and Jimmie, Jimmie apparently never shared this fact with Steve, who would only learn of the changes to his father’s estate plan some two decades later.

Bob Ross died on July 4, 1995, at age 52. Upon his death, his estate was valued at $1.3 million, half of which was his one-third share in BRI. Unable to gain full control over Bob’s share of BRI while Bob was alive, the Kowalski’s decided to sue Bob’s estate after his death. In addition to seeking all of his intellectual property rights in their lawsuit, the Kowalski’s also wanted all of Bob’s finished paintings—and even all of Bob’s art tools and paints down to his easel and brushes.

The Kowalski’s lawsuit was so expansive and their legal tactics so brutal that one of Bob’s old friends took to calling their efforts “Grand Theft Bob.” In the end, Kowalski’s legal strategy was designed to gain complete control of Bob’s afterlife, despite Bob’s clear wishes to the contrary.

Without the financial means to sustain a prolonged legal battle, the estate’s executor, Jimmie Cox, settled with the Kowalskis in 1997. The settlement agreement was accompanied by an assignment of all of Bob’s intellectual property rights, which stated that “To the extent, if any, any such rights or incidents of ownership are somehow vested in Estate, Estate hereby conveys, transfers and assigns all such rights and incidents of ownership and ownership itself to BRI.”

Additionally, both the estate and the Bob Ross Trust also signed separate mutual releases with BRI which state that the parties and their heirs, assigns, successors in interest, etc., “do, now and forever, absolutely and irrevocably, hereby release each other in and from any and all claims, suits, liabilities, complaints, losses, damages, and charges of every kind and character arising prior to the date of execution hereof.”

As with so many other artists, Bob Ross’s fame reached its zenith in the years following his death. Although The Joy of Painting’s last episode aired in 1995, as the years went by, more and more people would discover the iconic artist’s work and persona via the Internet. And when Annette and Walt Kowalski handed control of BRI to their daughter Joan in 2012, the Bob Ross brand would reach dizzying new heights.

Things really began to take off in 2015, when Joan was approached by the licensing company Janson Media, which wanted to add The Joy of Painting to a new online streaming platform called Twitch. With 403 episodes to pull from, Twitch launched a Bob Ross marathon, and the Bob Ross brand soon reached millions of new fans.

Joan discussed the Bob Ross reboot with the online journal Vocativ in 2015: “Twitch. TV woke up the world,” said Joan. “They made everybody remember their childhood again even though we’ve always been here… We are freakin’ out.”

Following the Twitch broadcast, Joan was approached by another brand-management firm known as Firefly, and that’s when the money really started pouring in. Today, you can find everything from Bob Ross bobbleheads and Bob Ross chia pets to Bob Ross Christmas ornaments and even action figures. Both Netflix and Twitch stream The Joy Of Painting series, and there’s a Bob Ross sleep app available through the Calm meditation app platform.

All of these licensing opportunities translated to major money for BRI. According to the Daily Beast, in 2012, when Joan took over, BRI brought less than $200 in licensing revenue outside of its paint products. But by 2016, that figure had grown to  $460,000, and by 2017, Bob Ross-branded products were bringing more than a million dollars in licensing fees to BRI each year.

Although shortly before his death, Bob amended his estate plan to transfer all of his intellectual property rights to his son, Steve, and half-brother, Jimmie Cox, Steve claimed that he never knew his father made such a move. In fact, it would be more than 20 years after his father’s death before Steve claims he found out about the clause in his father’s trust.

Based on this knowledge, Steve sued BRI, alleging that all of the licensing deals and products that used his father’s name and likeness were unauthorized. In his lawsuit, Steve demanded compensation for the years of unauthorized use of the intellectual property rights Steve claims to own based on his father’s estate plan.

Sadly for Steve, the court didn’t agree with his claim. In 2019, the court ruled that Bob Ross’s trust could not have assigned the intellectual property rights to Steve and Jimmie because the Trust did not own those rights to begin with. Specifically, the court stated in its ruling, “Plaintiff would not own the intellectual property at issue because the Trust never owned it. Similarly, because Bob Ross gave BRI his right to publicity during his lifetime, it could not have transferred to his son on his death.”

In other words, it didn’t matter that the Bob Ross Trust left Steve his father’s intellectual property rights because the Trust never owned those rights. Instead, the court found Bob had transferred all of his intellectual property to BRI during his lifetime via oral contracts. Therefore, the amendment to Bob’s trust was irrelevant, since Bob Ross had already given all of the rights to his intellectual property to BRI.

Although Steve thought he could win an appeal of his case, he didn’t have the money to continue to fight BRI, so he ended up settling with the Kowalski family. In exchange for a modest payment, Steve gave up his claims to his father’s intellectual property. However, in the settlement, Steve did win the right to move forward with a business using his own name.

Since then, Steve has launched his own business teaching painting workshops in the very same studio where his father began his career more than 25 years earlier. Steve was joined in his new venture by his father’s old friend Dana Jester, and they held their first workshop together in September 2019, when several dozen artists gathered to learn from the two most talented masters of the Bob Ross painting technique still alive today.

In the end, although Bob Ross clearly intended to leave his intellectual property rights to his son, because Bob failed to coordinate his business agreements with his estate plan, his son Steve will never share in the fortune that has been made by the vast business empire built on his father’s name, likeness, and persona.

Fortunately, you can easily prevent your loved ones from suffering the same fate as Steve using proper estate planning. Next week in part two of this series, we’ll discuss how you can use estate planning to ensure that all of your business assets, including any intellectual property you own, are protected and passed on to your family following your death or incapacity.

Until then, if you have a business, intellectual property, or any other type of asset that you want to include in your estate plan, meet with us as your Personal Family Lawyer®. With our support and guidance, we can ensure that your loved ones will always be provided for and stay out of court and out of conflict no matter what happens to you.

This article is a service of Christine Faulkner, Personal Family Lawyer®. We do not just draft documents; we ensure you make informed and empowered decisions about life and death, for yourself and the people you love. That’s why we offer a Family Wealth Planning Session™, during which you will get more financially organized than you’ve ever been before and make all the best choices for the people you love. You can begin by calling our office today to schedule a Family Wealth Planning Session and mention this article to find out how to get this $750 session at no charge.

Proper estate planning can keep your family out of conflict, out of court, and out of the public eye. If you’re ready to create a comprehensive estate plan, contact us to schedule your Family Wealth Planning Session. Even if you already have a plan in place, we will review it and help you bring it up to date to avoid heartache for your family. Schedule online today.

When you think about those loved ones who’ve passed away, you probably don’t think very much—or even at all—about the “things” they’ve left you. And when they do leave something behind, what you likely cherish most about the object are the memories and feelings it evokes, not the thing itself.

For the founder and CEO of New Law Business Model, Alexis Katz, the most treasured memento her late father left her wasn’t even something he intended to be special—it was just a random voicemail on her cellphone. And the message wasn’t meant to be anything sentimental.

His message simply said, “Lex, it’s your dad. Call me back.”

Following his death, Alexis loved listening to that message to hear her father’s voice. Of all the assets he left behind, that voicemail was what she cherished most.

Until one day, she went to listen to the message and discovered it had been erased—and her father’s voice was lost to her forever. She still recalls that day as one of her worst ever, yet like most painful events, it taught her an important lesson.

Losing that voicemail ultimately inspired Alexis to build a new feature into her family-centered model of estate planning, known as Family Wealth Legacy Passages. This feature, which is included in every plan we create, allows you to preserve and pass on something that’s inherently more valuable than any tangible asset you might leave your loved ones.

We recognize that estate planning isn’t just about preserving and passing on your financial wealth and property when you die. When done right, planning allows you to share your family’s stories, values, and life lessons, so your legacy carries on long after you—and your money—are gone.

Family Wealth Legacy Passages is a process that’s designed to not only ensure these intangible assets never get lost, but also to make the process of documenting them as easy and convenient as possible. In this process, we guide you to create a customized recording in which you share your most insightful memories and life lessons, not just for your children and grandchildren, but for generations to come. My favorite part about this process is that most of our clients tell us that going through it helps them surface things they would have never thought about regarding how they want to parent differently or things they want to share now, during life, not just leave behind a lasting legacy of love.

To help inspire you, we’ve developed a series of helpful questions and prompts, which makes the process not only easy, but enjoyable. And this isn’t something you have to do on your own, which you’d probably never get around to doing, despite your best intentions. Instead, Family Wealth Legacy Passages is something we include as an integral part of our planning services—and it’s included at no extra charge with each plan we create.

In the end, your family’s most precious wealth is not money, but the memories you make, the values you instill, and the lessons you hand down. And left to chance, these assets are likely to be lost forever just like Alexis’s voicemail from her father.

Our customized estate planning services will preserve and pass on not just your financial wealth, but your most treasured family values as well.

Proper estate planning can keep your family out of conflict, out of court, and out of the public eye. If you’re ready to create a comprehensive estate plan, contact us to schedule your Family Wealth Planning Session. Even if you already have a plan in place, we will review it and help you bring it up to date to avoid heartache for your family. Schedule online today.