Mind the Gap

Ensuring your clients stay on top of their Estate plan — and why that’s good for your firm.

It's a story many of us have heard, or lived through. A couple generates their Estate plan when their kids are young. They did the right thing. They put the Estate plan in their safe and heard their law firm’s instructions on what they need to do to make sure their plan is always up to date. A few decades later, the last of the couple passes, and their children (the successor trustees) contact the law firm, distraught because their parents’ Estate has issues. Maybe the trust is outdated. Maybe there are assets that are not held in the trust. Or worse, it’s an old trust that pre-dated a divorce and remarriage.

The period between the establishment of the Estate plan and its settlement represents a gap in the Estate management process. A gap that can wreak havoc for the trustees and the law firm.

Who’s at fault?

Of course, none of these issues are the fault of the law firm. The instructions shared with the couple were clear on things they should do, including scheduling regular trust reviews. And unless the couple were active clients, the law firm’s outreach likely was limited to sending an annual letter or email suggesting it might be time for a review of their Estate plan.

At this point the only thing the law firm can do is offer their services to help clean-up and correct some of the problems. But those billable hours are often resented by the family. As inappropriate as it is, the family often holds the law firm partially responsible for the mess and can create bad word-of-mouth advertising for the firm.

What law firms suggest their Estate plan clients do is pretty consistent:

• Monitor changes in their lives that should be reviewed for possible changes in their Estate.

• Fund the trust and make sure new assets are included and appropriately titled.

• Create a comprehensive list of all assets (financial, physical, digital) which will be needed to settle the Estate.

• Share all of this information, along with important instructions with those who will be settling the Estate.

• Meet with the law firm on a periodic basis to do a review/audit of the Estate to look for issues and opportunities with the Estate plan.

What clients actually do is also pretty consistent: little to nothing.

The Estate Management Technology Gap

When looking at the lifecycle of Estate management, there are technologies to help manage the beginning end end of the process. However, monitoring and managing an Estate plan is ultimately the client's responsibility. And until recently, there was no technology solution to help.

Legacy Logix is an AI-based automated Estate Portfolio Management platform. It helps clients monitor and manage their Estate plan over the years, addressing the gap between Estate plan creation and ultimate settlement.

How an Estate Portfolio Management Solution Benefits Law Firms

The Legacy Logix solution is specifically designed to help a law firm's clients, creating significant benefits that accrue to the law firm when recommending or offering it to your clients:

1.     It helps clients avoid the issues that can arise between the establishment and settlement of the Estate, reducing settlement problems and the myriad of issues that could be laid at the law firm’s front door.

2.     It helps identify triggers and recommends when the client should meet with their legal counsel. Informing a client of a specific situation or problem engages people far more than generic 'annual review' reminders.

3.     When offered by the law firm as an additional subscription service, Legacy Logix can generate meaningful revenue for the law firm that is not dependent on billable hours or administrative overhead. An Estate planning team with four attorneys could generate an additional $200,000+ a year of passive income.

4.     Legacy Logix helps drive collaboration and maintains ongoing relationships between the law firm and its clients. And because clients share Legacy Logix with their stakeholders (spouse, kids, involved relatives, etc.), these expanded relationships can help the law firm build new client business and strong word of mouth advertising.

The Bottom Line

Law firms have always sought to help their clients keep their Estate plans current. But traditional approaches of periodic reminders often go unnoticed. Legacy Logix creates an environment to actively collaborate with clients over the years, with almost zero effort on each side. It helps ensure Estate plans are always well managed and maintained. And most importantly, it facilitates settlements and reduces the burden for everyone involved.