A Martindale Hubbell AV rated diversified law firm rated among the best lawyers in the country in the Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers.
Our Estate Planning Center is designed to acquaint you with how well equipped and organized we are to assist you in meeting your estate planning needs and desires. We have an estate planning team that devote their practice primarily to the area of estate planning and wealth preservation. PDR attorneys Dick Peterson and Lew Dymond are members of WealthCounsel, a prestigious national organization comprised of attorneys whose practice is devoted primarily to estate planning. Lewis W. Dymond, Jr. has designed the software for the exclusive use by the members of WealthCounsel and he serves as chief executive officer of WealthCounsel.
We believe that estate planning is not about documents, it is about results! Too often estate planning is equated with wills, trusts, durable powers of attorney and other legal documents. While it is true that documents are necessary to achieve a client's estate planning goals, the estate planning process consists of much more than just the routine preparation of documents. The estate planning process involves: setting and defining goals; becoming familiar with the legal terms, tools and basic estate tax rules; gathering the necessary information; and finally the design, drafting and implementation of the estate plan itself.
Often estate planning is considered something about which only the really wealthy need to be concerned. This misconception often comes from the use of the term "estate planning". One equates the word "estate" with the wealthy. Actually "estate" is just another term for what comedian, George Carlin, calls your "stuff". So actually when we are talking about estate planning we are talking about "stuff planning".
In setting estate planning goals we are actually defining a set of "baby-sitter" instructions for your stuff. Spelling out how you want your stuff handled when you are not able to do so. This can be as the result of incapacity or ultimately because of death. Simply stated, your estate plan is a set of baby-sitter instructions on how you want your stuff managed when you are not able to do so. This would include: how you want it managed, who you want managing it and for whom you want it managed. Just as baby-sitter instructions used your resources, with your wisdom and your love to provide for the care of your loved ones when you weren't there, so should your estate plan.
If a client is to be comfortable with any estate plan there should be a high level of understanding. Therefore, we believe that an important step in the estate planning process is to help the client become familiar with the terms, tools, and tax laws involved. This involves explaining fairly sophisticated estate planning concepts in a manner that is easy to understand. We often use drawings and flowcharts to help explain these concepts. Usually these drawings are included in the client's Estate Planning Portfolio.
In order to properly proceed with the estate planning process, the client must gather the necessary information . Towards that end we provide the client with an Estate Design Worksheet to be completed and returned prior to the first meeting.
The final steps in the process are the design, drafting and implementation of the actual estate plan. Again we feel that results are more important that just documents. Any lawyer can pull forms out of a form book and draft documents. Too often this is past off as estate planning. Each element of the estate plan should be designed to meet the goals and objectives of the particular client. One size does not fit all! We often work with the client's other advisors in the design process. It is true that documents must be used. Depending on the needs and desires of the client these may be complex and technical, but they must be designed and drafted to the specific situation.
Finally if the estate plan is to work as designed the plan needs to be implemented. This usually does not mean just signing the documents. For the estate plan to work as designed, property must be titled properly and beneficiaries must be properly designated on life insurance, retirement plans and other items transferred at death by way of beneficiary designations . We believe that this is an essential step that should not be left solely up to the client.