Meeting #2 with Christine

Christine and I met in her office yesterday. Chris is a really good estate planning attorney for someone who has assets of up to $4-$5 Million. After that, she seems uncomfortable with any of the advanced planning options such as Family Limited Partnerships or Charitable Remainder Trusts. In fact, most of the time she refers those types of cases out to other attorneys. Because she keeps her practice so simple, there may not be a lot of opportunity to add value to her current clients.
However, last year she entered into an agreement with a retiring estate planning attorney in her office space. Bob retired and entrusted Chris with managing all of his previous clients’ files. Bob sent out a letter to these clients announcing his retirement and telling them to call Chris with any issues in the future. Bob will receive a percentage of any fees generated on these clients for the next couple of years. Chris estimates that there may be over 2000 files and that she has worked on about 40 cases so far since Bob has sent out the first letter.
This could be a great opportunity for Chris and myself to make a lot of money. Chris mentioned that Bob’s clients were similar to hers in that the estates were not too complicated or in the very high net worth area. That’s probably ok for me since my ideal client is between 500k and 3 Million. Chris also mentioned that Bob seemed a little bored in retirement and had contacted Chris about sending out another letter.
When we discussed these clients I felt that Chris realizes she should do something to reach out to them and take advantage of the opportunity, but she has not really come up with a good idea yet. I think she has been procrastinating and that if I were to come up with an idea that excited her, she would definitely pursue it.
Here is a brainstorm of some of the things I may bring up to her in the next meeting:
1. Since Bob is “bored” could he help us organize these files in a digital format so we can pick and choose who to contact? He has financial incentive for Chris to work with these clients.
2. A lunch seminar where we give an update on the latest changes in estate planning laws and how they may affect your investments. I can even bring in a ML Trust guy to add value
3. Inviting a select few to my client appreciation dinner parties
4. Offer a onetime review option for $500? Which would include scenario analysis for a financial plan.
As for the list of challenges in Estate Planning that I went over with Chris, there were a couple of other issues where she mentioned some struggles in the past. The first one was “Time and effort required to identify assets and transfer them to appropriate entity”. Chris gives out a checklist after the trust is written with instructions on how to make the required transfers and re-title their accounts. Sometimes clients will pay her $250 an hour to do it herself. Chris would be willing to do a follow up letter to check up on her clients to make sure it’s done, however she is concerned that she needs to “end” the engagement in order for her malpractice insurance to apply. In other words, there has to be a beginning and an end to the work, otherwise her insurance rates may go higher since the clients would then be on a “retainer”. I am a little confused by what she said, but I think we could find a way to make it work.
She has also seen some widowed clients that are concerned that they will outlive their money. There are a lot of rules that the surviving spouse must live up to because she becomes a trustee of the surviving trusts. There are fiduciary responsibilities and when the heirs are step children, sometimes the opportunity is ripe for lawsuits if they think the surviving spouse is spending their inheritance. I did not follow up with any questions on this, as I am unsure on how I can insert my services into this situation. I know I can help these clients, but I don’t know how to bring up the right questions to get the attorney to come up with a way that I can come in and see them. I think I need Steve’s help on this one.
Hopefully I can keep Chris moving through the process and figure out a way to reach out to her old/new clients.