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ESTATE PLANNING SMARTS
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How to Find Good Legal Advice
You might be doing an estate plan for the first time or giving your exist- ing plan a tune-up or a total overhaul. Either way, it’s best to choose someone who not only has the necessary skills but with whom you feel comfortable. To find the best lawyer for the job and pay only for what’s es- sential, consider these issues.
Do you need a new lawyer? If you have never done any estate planning, the answer is probably yes. This is not a job for the real estate lawyer who did your house closing, for example.
If you are updating an existing plan, the professional who created it might
be able to make the changes after a brief conversation with you by phone or in person. But if your situation has changed and you need sophisticated advice about generation-skipping transfer tax (see Chapter 14), special needs trusts (Chapter 5) or protecting assets from potential future creditors (Chapter 17), make certain you are getting the expert guidance you need – and be prepared to pay for it. Don’t be afraid to ask, “How many of these kinds of matters have you handled?” If the answer isn’t dozens, consider finding someone else.
How do you choose the right lawyer? Start with referrals from people you know who are in similar situations or from professionals whose judg- ment you trust, like accountants, financial advisers or other lawyers. State and local bar associations can direct you to lawyers in your area but can’t vouch for their skills. Names can also be found on martindale.com, the nationwide lawyers’ directory that you can search by location and area of practice, and on www.actec.org, the Web site of The American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, a group of trust and estate lawyers.
Depending on where you live, you may have a choice between large national firms with many practice groups or estate planning boutiques – small firms that specialize in trust and estate work. The latter tend to be less expensive because their overhead is lower.
Contractions in the legal workforce can be your gain, as well-trained young or midcareer lawyers cast off by big firms hang out their shingles. These lawyers keep overhead low by sharing space with bigger firms or renting no-frills space near the government offices where public records
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