If you’ve been wondering whether it’s worth the time and money to have a lawyer help you with your estate plan, the New York Times is here with an answer, and everything you need to know is right there in the title of the article: Good Advice Makes All the Difference in Estate Planning.
Learning about estate planning isn’t like learning to make spaghetti sauce, where the proof of the value of the recipe and ingredients is in the eating of the finished product. An estate plan is intangible. To feel confident that you have an accurate and valuable estate plan you have to have faith in the attorney who created it for you. How do you find an attorney in whom you can place your trust and confidence? Author Deborah L. Jacobs has a few tips to help you find the perfect attorney:
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Ask your friends or other trusted advisors
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Research an attorney’s background before you jump in
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Meet with the attorney and pay attention to the chemistry
Jacobs knows that the decision to spend money on something as intangible as creating or updating an estate plan is a difficult one right now. Those who do feel the cost of estate planning is a worthwhile investment don’t want that investment wasted. Finding the lawyer who will understand your needs, work toward your goals, and give you confidence and peace of mind is essential.
If your goals include designing your estate plan to accommodate not only death, but also your need for Long Term Care, you may need to find an Elder Law attorney. Elder Law attorneys are generally skilled in both general estate planning, as well as the particular nuances necessary to enable such plans to accommodate Long Term Care needs. Where appropriate, an estate plan prepared by an Elder Law attorney may help you coordinate your estate preservation goals with qualifying for government benefits to assist with the cost of care. With those needs in mind, our firm has created very special estate plans for couples with those concerns: we call such plans prepared for a healthy couple our “Spousal Protection Plan“. Alternatively, where one spouse wishes to design a plan to protect an “Incapacitated Spouse“, we have created a specially designed plan for that situation, as well.