Why You Need an Estate- Planning Attorney
Hiring a financial adviser is not enough
By Deborah Jeanne Sergeant
When completing your end-of-life planning, you should retain an estate-planning attorney as well.
Although a financial adviser can assist in planning your nest egg investments, an estate attorney can help you plan and write up legally binding documents about what you want to happen to your assets for when you are incapacitated (both short-term and long-term incidences) and for when you die. The documents would include a will, trusts, power of attorney, living will and healthcare proxy.
Kristin S. Jonsson, attorney at Pellittiere & Jonsson PLLC in Penfield, said that people need a team for end-of-life planning, like financial advisers and tax accountants to ensure that these plans are integrated.
“A financial planner helps you build wealth, a CPA or accountant helps you minimize the taxes you pay on that wealth and an estate planning attorney ensures your wealth is protected, preserved and passed on exactly as you intend,” Jonsson said.
Typically, an estate plan includes a few documents, such as a will, trust, power of attorney and healthcare proxy. Of course, many of these end-of-life planning tools can be found online. However, it’s easy to select the wrong document or tool or implement them incorrectly. That’s why Jonsson encourages people to seek an estate attorney.
As for the online forms, “such documents are basic and fail to consider many aspects of planning that an estate planning attorney will cover,” Jonsson said. “Every family, individual and set of circumstances are unique and each plan must be tailored to the needs and goals of the client.”
An estate planning attorney can look at a client’s entire situation — not just their finances — to draft documents and enact tools to best suit their needs. Using AI tools to perform these tasks can lead to stilted results at best and legally unenforceable documents at worst.
“There are also considerations for how you leave assets to minor beneficiaries or disabled beneficiaries,” Jonsson said. “If this is not done correctly, beneficiaries could lose government benefits or children could walk into large sums of money before they are prepared to manage those assets.”
In addition to a will, tools like health care proxy, power of attorney and living will help you ensure your wishes are carried out if you’re incapacitated.
It’s important to ensure that people selected for roles such as health care proxy and power of attorney are willing to do these tasks. They should also know where these corresponding legal documents are kept. You may want them to retain a copy as well. Choose people who are deeply trustworthy, capable of serving in these roles and who agree to carry out your wishes.
David Shaffer, attorney with Woods Oviatt Gilman LLP in Rochester, encourages clients to periodically review their legal documents with an attorney.
“If a client has worked on a will or estate plan 10 years ago and they make handwritten notes on it for changes they want to make, those notes in the margin have no legal effect,” Shaffer said. “There are formalities for a last will and testament in New York state. You have to have two witnesses. Those handwritten notes added years later have no witnesses and therefore no validity.
“Unfortunately, folks have tried to take it into their own hands and it’s not valid. You need an attorney to oversee that process.”
He added that blended families can also make final planning more complicated and requires professional legal help deciding how to distribute assets to heirs. This can help prevent ugly legal battles later.
Shaffer has encountered downloaded legal forms that are outdated or from another state.
“It’s also worse with the introduction of AI,” Shaffer said. “You have to be so careful with legal documents. Online resources create a trap and they think they have valid legal forms and they don’t.”
He wants his law firm to function as a resource to help people get their questions answered and create forms that shore up their end-of-life planning.
“You can ask ChatGPT a legal question but it may not be right,” he said. “Having an attorney who does this day in and day out and even if you did a will 10 to 15 years ago. Do the laws apply now that applied then? You need someone to talk with.”