How It Works
The Plan Ahead Process
Five steps from "we should really do this" to a finished, funded, maintained estate plan. Most firms stop at step three.
Assess
Figure out what you actually need
Every plan starts with understanding your family, your assets, and what you want to happen. Start with the free 2-minute assessment online, or go straight to a consultation — either way, this step is about your situation, not a sales pitch.
By the end of this step you'll know which documents your family actually needs, and which ones you don't.
Take the Free Assessment→Design
Plain English, and a flat fee before any work begins
We talk through the design of your plan: who's in charge if something happens, who inherits what and when, what happens in the hard cases nobody likes to think about. No legal jargon — if you don't understand a piece of your own plan, that's my failure, not yours.
You get a flat-fee quote before any drafting starts. Every fee is published on the pricing page, so there's nothing to negotiate and nothing to fear opening.
See Flat-Fee Pricing→Sign
Documents done right, typically within two weeks
I draft your documents — trust, wills, powers of attorney, healthcare directives — and we review them together before you sign. Typical turnaround is about two weeks, not months.
You leave with a complete, organized portfolio binder: every document, plus the guides and records your family will need to actually use the plan.
Fund
The step most firms skip — and the one that makes it work
A trust only controls what's actually in it. Signing was not the finish line: your home, accounts, and business interests have to be retitled or coordinated with the plan. An unfunded trust is an empty box, and it's the single most common estate planning failure in the industry.
That's why funding is a named step here, not a homework assignment. Your deed work is handled as part of the plan, you get a step-by-step funding roadmap for everything else, and we stay available until every asset is where it belongs.
How Trust Funding Works→Maintain
A plan that stays current as life changes
Estate plans go stale: children grow up, businesses get sold, laws change, families move. A plan written ten years ago and never touched can be almost as risky as no plan at all.
Your binder includes the records your family needs to keep the plan usable, and I encourage a review after any major life event — birth, death, divorce, new property, new business — or every few years, whichever comes first. When something changes, you call, and we fix it.
Why give the process a name?
Because the two steps with names nobody else uses — Fund and Maintain — are the two places estate plans quietly fail. Naming them is a commitment: your plan isn't done when the ink dries, and it isn't done when the binder goes on the shelf. It's done when it works, and it keeps working.
Frequently Asked Questions
Start With Step One
The assessment takes two minutes. The consultation is a conversation, not a commitment.