Question: What should I look for in an estate planning attorney?

SG Guy — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:32:34 +0000

Answer: Look for the “3 Cs” (capability, cost and compatibility) –

Capability — Does the attorney have the training, skills and experience to handle the work? Look for an estate planning or elder law attorney who spends 80% or more of his or her time working on estate planning and related matters. Stay away from the “general practice” attorney (in my view it’s impossible to keep up with multiple areas of the law and do it well). Ask for references to families where the client helped has since died. If the attorney did a good job, things should have run smoothly.
Cost – Are the attorney’s charges clear, understood and acceptable to you? It’s O.K. to shop around. Look for a fixed charge, or a maximum — avoiding hourly fees whenever you can. Be sure to have a written contract for services that spells out your deal with the attorney.
Compatibility — Choose one you connect and feel comfortable with, and who listens to you. You need to be able to share private information. There are many attorneys, with different personal styles — with some you’ll be comfortable, with others you won’t.

Actually, the “3 Cs” work when dealing with all types of advisors (estate planning or otherwise).

Private Advice

Staff — Sun, 17 May 2009 03:56:25 +0000

We love to help donors and volunteers make more effective use of their donated money and time. We do that through

This site (smartergivingguy.com)
Our classes and
Our private advice service.

Private Advice
We can help an individual, couple, family or organization be a smart (even brilliant) giver. As your private advisor, we can help you focus your philanthropy, set priorities, create budgets for your current and deferred giving, evaluate, select and create effective relationships with charities, be tax-smart in your giving, and incorporate family members and your other advisors (accountant, financial advisor, attorney, etc.) in your philanthropy — in each case depending on your goals and situation.

Foundations and other grant-makers across the U.S. use on-staff program officers to help them set their giving priorities and/or evaluate and select charities. We can do the same for you.

Our unique service is for those who give, or plan to give, what they consider to be a significant amount to one or more charities — and want to do so wisely and well.

We do not be prepare legal documents, give legal advice or otherwise providing legal services. We urge our clients to retain an attorney or attorneys to advise them on legal issues.

Although we are able to advise you concerning more than 1.4 million organizations, we do not advise on (i) organizations which primarily operate outside the United States – because we cannot be confident that we will find adequate accurate information; or (ii) organizations that Smarter Giving Guy staff members have helped form or operate – because of our duties of confidentiality to them.

You can reach us using any of the options provided on our Contact Us page.

The Smarter Giving Guy » professionals

Question: What should I look for in an estate planning attorney?

Private Advice