Saving Parents’ Precious Resources

Occasionally, I’m stunned by how little current clients’ or customers’ needs are considered by service providers. As an estate planning attorney for “non-traditional families,” one of my key concerns for my clients is providing them with services that are not only excellent, but also efficient.

Nontraditional families include women who are heads of households with children and, as the primary wage earner, they have 3 issues to continually manage:

1. Financial resources
2. Time
3. Parenting

Make that a delivery…Change page 8’s verbage…

While The Law Offices of Max Elliott may not be able to assist in quality parenting, we do provide services and use tools that bring efficiency to the first 2 issues. In plain English, we help our clients by saving them money and time.

Estate planning, as is said so often now, is not just for the very wealthy. So our services allow you to determine the scope of estate planning protection that fits within your financial framework.

Are you a median wage earner who rents with a teenager living at home but working his or her way through college? If so, then an estate plan that encompasses education planning and a Qualified Personal Residence Trust, or “QPRT,” may be unnecessary AND we won’t turn you away.

We will simply recognize that more than likely, to protect your family and yourself, you will and should want to start with simpler vehicles, which is what you can obtain for probably less than 1-2 months’ rent.

BUT… “It’s not money, but time,” you say.  Well let’s look at Joan:

Joan is an HR executive at a Fortune 500 company and earns more than the median. Plus, she’s up by 5 AM to workout, get the kids off to school and daycare, is working her smartphone by 7:30 at the office by train by 9ish, eats lunch at her desk, is on the 5:15 and cooking or ordering in by 6:30 but answers her email until 10:00 PM. Weekends are for catching up on the latest SHRM reports she missed while taking the train during the week. Joan came up along the ranks in HR, so it would be unwise for us to waste her time talking about 401(k) planning and HSAs. She’s a tech wizard who lives in the ‘burbs and works downtown, so I’d also never think to ask her to commit to only in-person meetings when a teleconference or an exchange on our secure client directory will suffice.

Speaking of that directory, if you are the mom, renting, and with the teenager or a parent with kids and no time like Joan, or someone who just wants to save time and money, our secure online portal that is available for clients makes it easy to engage in substantive, secure conversations, exchange documents, and pay fees all in one place. It’s not an open e-mail or even e-mail on our website. It’s a secure, designed specifically for lawyers and used strictly by us and our clients.

So, in concluding this shameless “use our service” self-promotional piece, I’ll just say that whoever you choose as your legal services team, make sure that your precious resources are considered and used wisely.