PITFALL 5: Hiring an inexperienced attorney or the wrong kind of attorney
Even once domestic partners decide that they have to find an attorney to help them enact their estate plans, they still have to find a qualified attorney. Who should they hire? What experience should they have? Where are they located? How should you go about finding an attorney? All of these are legitimate questions, and we’ll go through them one at a time. More importantly than even finding the right attorney is making sure that they use the right documents.
First, there is experience. It has been my belief for a long while that just counting the number of years an attorney has been in practice tells you nothing about how they good they would be with your particular case. An attorney may have been practicing law for 25 years, but if all they did was real estate law, then they would have no experience in preparing trusts and other estate documents. If an attorney has only been practicing divorce law for 25 years, then they would have no experience in helping you set up your corporate business.
If partners are looking for the right estate planning attorney, then they should look for someone with experience specifically in estate planning. An attorney with three years of practicing only in the needed field is far better than an attorney with a lot of experience doing something different. In my years of working as an estate planning attorney, I have seen many other attorneys “dabble” in estate planning and consequently give their clients inferior service. And they are not even aware that they have done so. One of the big problems in messing up an estate planning document is that the attorney doesn’t know that they missed something until it is too late to do anything about it.
Another thing to consider is whether or not an attorney has experience helping clients in your particular situation. This is particularly important for domestic partners because, in some cases, special precautions have to be taken, and sometimes discretion is extremely important. An attorney that has been drafting Wills for married couples for many years would certainly have the experience to help another married couple draft Wills, but maybe not the experience to help domestic partners prepare a joint revocable living trust with a domestic partnership property agreement. An attorney that has been practicing divorce law for many years may not also have the knowledge and experience to represent a partner in a disintegrating partnership with child custody issues.
In finding out whether or not an attorney has the experience necessary to help domestic partners, ask the following questions:
- How many years have you been practicing in this particular field?
- How many clients have you helped?
- What percentage of your client fees comes from this field?
- Do you have a lot of experience helping domestic partners with this kind of work?
When you get the answers to these questions, you are much closer to finding out whether or not they are experienced in the field of law you need help with.
Another factor to consider in choosing an attorney is location. How close are their offices to you? How willing are you to travel for the legal services you will receive? If they are located a good distance from you, how many visits will it take to complete the legal work?
Some times, domestic partners wish to see an attorney in person to handle their estate planning documents. In other cases, partners are not as insistent at meeting the attorney face to face as long as they are able to conduct their interview by phone. Because finding experienced attorneys in domestic partner estate planning is not an easy task, partners will sometimes travel great distances for the help they need.
Fortunately, there are a few short cuts to getting the right help without necessarily finding exactly the right attorney. As I mentioned before, having the right documents is critical, but you may not need the best attorney available to get the best documents. The Estate Plan has what I consider one of the best domestic partner trusts available in the form of its Partner AB-SECURE Trust with an integrated domestic partnership property agreement. (In the interest of full disclosure, the reason I know these documents are the best available is that I worked in conjunction with The Estate Plan to create them.) Top receive a free report on the Partner AB-SECURE Trust, please go to www.partnerabsecuretrust.com.
Any financial advisor and attorney team affiliated with The Estate Plan can obtain these documents, and I am personally available to these advisors to consult on domestic partner cases. The Estate Plan can be contacted at 1-800-350-1234, but be sure to request that the attorney or advisor contact me to assist with the case.
Another place to find the right attorney or advisor to work on your case is through The National Institute for Domestic Partner Estate Planning. For a listing of professionals in your state, please go to www.NIDPestateplanning.com. Many of the professionals listed there are also affiliated with The Estate Plan and therefore have access to the Partner AB-SECURE Trust.
Conclusion
There are many pitfalls out there affecting the ability of domestic partners to effectively reach their life and estate planning goals. There are also many inadequate solutions that give partners a false sense of security and are likely to cause problems after it is too late to do anything about it. To bypass these pitfalls, be sure to avoid using joint property, a Last Will and Testament, limited liability companies, and do-it-yourself programs and forms. To effectively reach your goals, contact a life and estate planning attorney with experience in helping domestic partners.
We hope that you found this information helpful in avoiding potentially disastrous and costly mistakes. For more information please download The Gay Marriage Alternative at www.gaymarriagealternative.com.
Comments