While it may seem burdensome to fill out the paperwork prior to meeting with an attorney for estate planning, or as I like to call it, life planning, there really is a purpose to it that benefits you. Having the information completed and available for your attorney to review prior to your appointment allows you to have more quality planning time with the attorney, without the need for the attorney to spend additional time simply taking information down and then processing it on the fly. While we are adept at doing that, it does you no favors, as what we really want to do is help you in planning more completely. If we are tasked with collecting the information during the meeting then we cannot achieve that goal.
Additionally, when you are putting the requested information together, it allows you the time to start to think about the plan in a more relaxed manner. This means without a feeling of having to rush to a decision as to who will be making what could end up being life and death decisions for you, or at the very least, financial or legal decisions. By giving you our worksheet documents ahead of the planning meeting, we are already assisting you in the planning process, which will then carry through to a much more beneficial meeting between yourself and your attorney, and possibly better reflect your ultimate planning goals and wishes.
From experience, I can also tell you that when you are collecting this information, it sometimes becomes evident that certain accounts that have been dormant or otherwise forgotten about need to be addressed by closure or consolidation. Other types of distributions or assets, even tangible items, come into sharper relief when you have the time to consider who is going to manage your affairs or receive some of those assets.
In short, please remember that those intake worksheets we send out are as much to your benefit as for ours – but you already knew that, since if you’re reading this, you’ve already been a client.