Some estate planning attorneys may offer a free consultation. But we think that our fee-based consultation is a better use of everyone’s time. A meaningful consultation is a substantial investment of preparation time both on the part of the client and attorney. This type of meeting yields specific action items. Due to the complexity of estate planning, anything less than a meaningful consultation is going to merely result in a generic information session. Out of respect for your time and effort to meet with us, we prefer to provide you with the value of a fee-based consultation; we go to work for you right from the start. In other words, a fee-based consultation works for you.

Estate Planning Is a Complex Strategy
Proper estate planning has a lot of moving parts. An estate plan is a complex strategy to make sure that you’re able to pass along as much of your wealth as possible to the people you want.

For example, some of the moving parts include much more than tax considerations, but also things like disability, veteran status, children with special needs, family-owned businesses, blended families, college financial aid, and Medicaid qualification. All the parts need to be addressed in the plan. Further, each part needs to fit together with the other parts without triggering an unintended result.

Our estate planning process begins with a comprehensive questionnaire and a list of documents for you to gather before the consultation. Many of the questions require some thought put into them. Married clients will have a lot to discuss and agree on. Further, you may be surprised with the number of documents needed to plan your estate—as well as the time it can take to collect them.

But the up-front effort and cost can be well worth it.

Good Communication Expedites Estate Planning
With this information, the attorney gets a complete and accurate picture of your family, your needs, their needs, and your estate. This preparation provides the attorney with the necessary information to ask any follow-up questions and to offer appropriate counsel. It also gets you in the proper mindset so that you can use your appointment time to ask the important questions that you’ve come up as well as think about a lot of important decisions that will have to be made. Two-way communication is essential to estate planning. Both the client and attorney come to the table ready to work.

So, before the consultation, you’ve invested time and effort into preparation . . . and so has your attorney. And with the full picture at hand, your attorney can begin the process and efficiently create an estate plan that will accomplish your estate planning goals.

Work with an Experienced Corning Estate Planning Attorney
If you’re ready to schedule your consultation, we’re ready to get to work for you! Call Roth Elder Law, PLLC today to schedule an initial meeting at 607-962-6162.