about our Name…
The name, Legally Remote, just a few years ago, during COVID, could not have been a better fit. All consultations were virtual, and we served clients from all over the state, “remotely.”
Fast forward a few years, one may wonder if we should change our name. It has crossed our minds too. However, we have found, that many of our elderly clients have adult children that live across the country. And often, these are the ones that need to be involved in the planning for their aging parents. We continue to offer “hybrid-meeting” options to all of our clients, so that those who need to be included, can be, no matter where they live. So, we continue to proudly call ourselves, Legally Remote.
About Minerva
I’ve been practicing estate planning & special needs planning for a couple of decades. When I started, I practiced as most planning attorneys do: I provided legal advice and prepared documents. While the documents I prepared were what my clients requested and they were of good quality, the more experienced I became in these areas of practice, the more dissatisfied I became with the typical way of serving my clients. There is so much more to planning than a good set of documents; the documents are just a small part of it.
…more about Minerva
Good planning involves looking at the big picture; it’s about planning holistically. What do I mean by that? First and foremost, it’s important for me to get to know my clients at a personal level and get a good understanding of their family dynamics. Why? Because as my client provides me with those details, it allows me to identify planning strategies that my client may not have thought of or perhaps may not even know they exist. My role is to help my clients plan strategically.
Countless times I’ve met with clients that have a decent set of documents that include a trust, but the trust was never funded and the client wasn’t quite sure how to do it (or was altogether unaware of the need to do it) and consequently their plan would fail. My objective is to educate my clients and help them get organized with their assets and trust funding so that their plan can be executed seamlessly, which is typically when loved ones see and understand the value of proper planning.
“While most think of estate planning as planning for death, I see the process as planning for life.”
Typical estate planners focus on your retirement plan and then your plan at death. What about your care for the remainder of your life? How will you pay for it? Because we are living longer than ever before we are prone to living with some sort of chronic condition for many years. In-home care and assisted living facilities are exorbitantly expensive. Will you deplete your assets to pay for this care? Do you want to burden your adult children and/or your spouse to figure that all out when the time comes? What if you’ve already been diagnosed with a chronic condition? What resources are available in the community? These are the kind of conversations that must be had for you to have a good plan.
Communication is also a key factor in good planning. It’s not easy to discuss death with family members, especially if there is tension within the family unit.
“The most effective planning strategy to avoid rivalry amongst beneficiaries is to have open communication with them about your intentions.”
More often than not , I see relationships among siblings become strained because they were expecting their parent(s) to make different decisions about something; perhaps appoint him/her as a healthcare surrogate or leave him/her something different as their inheritance. When these decisions are not communicated there is higher probability that there will be conflict within the family at a time when they are already feeling stress, anxiety, and grief, which naturally occur in these circumstances. When you work with us we not only encourage you to have these conversations with your family, but as part of our planning we facilitate them if that is something our client would like us to do.
That being said, if what you are looking for is “just a will”, what you are requesting is just a document and you can find that anywhere online.
When you work with Legally Remote, PLLC we provide so much more than just the documents because that’s what’s necessary for us to make sure our client’s plan does not fail at a time when they need it most. We become a life-long trusted advisor to our clients and their families as they navigate through the seasons of life.