During this day-long session you'll learn the basics of estate planning law and explore the drafting possibilities within Wealth Docx® to get yourself ready to serve your first estate planning clients.

Business Law Essentials is a full-day intensive designed for those new to business law or interested in adding business law to an estate planning practice. We will cover the basics of entity selection and formation as well as LLC structure, operation, and management.

 

Schedule:

9:00-12:00 Morning session (including 30-minute break)

12:00-2:00 Lunch

2:00-5:00 Afternoon session (including 30-minute break)

During this intensive course, you will learn how to quickly (and easily) add trust administration to your existing practice to serve more clients and increase your revenue. This course will cover the essentials of trust administration law and will teach you how to administer a trust using WealthCounsel’s trust administration software.  We will walk you through a hypothetical trust administration case to help you understand the process.
Attendees will learn:

By the end of this precursor, you will have what you need to add trust administration to your practice.
 

Join us for an evening of baseball and networking. The entire Sam Adams Deck has been reserved for Symposium 2019 attendees to have an open bar, complimentary ballpark dinner, networking, and (of course) great seats to watch the World Champion Boston Red Sox play the Tampa Bay Rays. Transportation via motorcoach to and from the Boston Park Plaza is included. This is the event everyone will be talking about for the next five Symposiums--don’t miss out!

Firearms are commonly owned assets, with an estimated 300 million or more in circulation.  Gun owners often do not know all the federal and state rules for lawful possession and transfer.  Firearms in gun trusts and estates can be even more problematic.  In this session we will do a quick review of federal and representative state gun laws.  Then will analyze common fact patterns that can give rise to criminal possession or transfer of a firearm between persons.

Business planning is a natural and integral addition to an estate planning practice.  Adding the formation of business entities such as limited liability companies and corporations to your existing estate planning practice will add value and flexibility to your estate plans for many clients who either are sole proprietors, own investment properties, or own family cabins that they wish to transfer to future generations.  Use of business entities can be useful planning tools because they can allow for more flexibility than a trust, in some situations, while having the added benefit of creditor protection. Likewise, a working understanding of business law, limited liabilities, and corporate law is necessary for estate planners to properly advise clients, who own (or should own) these types of interests, on how to incorporate these interests into their estate plan.

This session covers 3-5 case studies to highlight the following topics:

To port or not to port, that is the question.
Whether ‘tis better for the client to bypass
The exclusion amount of outrageous fortune,
Or to take Portability against a sea of taxes;
And by use of the DSUE amount decrease them?
Aye, there’s the rub, for when drafting and administering
What decisions may come, must give us pause.

As estate plans mature, trust administration naturally becomes a growth area for established practices. But the administration process can be a morass of inefficiency, and it can suck profitably down the drain. As an experienced partner from an established firm, Jessica will share her perspectives on her successes, challenges, and effective processes she has used to make trust administration successful in the practice.

The first contact you make with a potential client can be the difference between creating life-long customers...or educating the caller for your competition. Learn some best practices around conducting the initial client call so you can maximize the number of appointments made, minimize the tire-kickers, and be the first step in increasing your firm's bottom line. In this class, we'll discuss the best way to answer calls, how to deal with substantive legal questions, and how to explain your pricing structure without committing to a specific fee.

Network in the HUB and our Exhibitor Room

During this session, we’ll discuss five critical mindsets for building meaningful relationships with financial advisors who may be (or become) your biggest referral sources. Regardless of where you are in your career, these mindsets will help you unlock hidden potential in these relationships, resulting in more referrals and better service to your mutual clients. Along the way, we'll discuss action-steps so you can return to your office ready to create and enhance relationships.

Taking Care of Clients and Increasing Your Revenue and Profits

Can you really do it all: increase revenue and profits and decrease overhead without sacrificing taking care of clients? What about funding? Yes! In fact, you can take “caring for families” to the next level. It all starts with focusing on results, not tasks. However, before you can even begin to think about that, both attorney and client need a mindset shift. The relationship must transform to where the attorney no longer simply takes orders from clients and acts solely as a “funder” and document drafter; instead, the client and attorney form a partnership and align their goals. This allows the attorney to drill down to what is most important and surprise clients by going beyond their expectations.

 Learn how to demonstrate the value you and your team provide and streamline your systems at the same time. If you want to increase your price for services without increasing overhead and create consistent, predictable revenue for your firm, then this is the seminar for you! 

Irrevocable trusts are no longer irrevocable.  There are now at least 29 states that have statutes allowing a trustee to decant an irrevocable trust by transferring the trust assets into a new irrevocable trust with different terms for one or more of the same beneficiaries.  Not all of the 29 decanting states allow for the same degree of flexibility.  In fact, only 7 of the 29 states allow a Private Decanting which protects the client’s privacy so the entire family doesn’t have a copy of the trusts.  The presenter will describe all of this in detail.

This session addresses three crucial areas of funding a client's trust: real property transfers, bank account re-titling, and non-qualified and qualified investment accounts. For situations involving real estate, Kevin addresses pre-deed preparation, as well as drafting and submitting deeds. When re-titling bank accounts, certain documents will be required by the bank, which Kevin will explain, along with the use of transfer letters and other forms. Kevin also discusses working with a client's account manager or transfer agent, and answers the questions of whether to use transfer letter or investment company forms, and who should be involved in a change of ownership of non-qualified and qualified investment accounts.

This is a casual lunch get-together for all California WealthCounsel Members who registered for the luncheon.

Lunch options include a Chicken Wrap, Roast Beef Sandwich, and Hummus & Vegetable Wrap.  

 

More details to come.

Your legal experience and skills are the reason you were hired, but learning how to bring added value to your firm is what will earn you the title of Firm MVP.  Learn how to track referrals so your office never loses a potential client. Learn how to systemize your workflow and office to save time and money. Learn how you can increase your firm's revenue to become the team player your firm cannot do without. 

As technology continues to advance and improve, you have a choice – adapt and use it to your advantage, or watch others pass you by. This interactive workshop will help you understand the who, what, when, where, why, and how of harnessing technology in your law firm. We’ll discuss:

• when to start;

• who needs to buy into the idea;

• properly aligning expectations in tech-assisted collaborations with others;

• why you’ll find you love and embrace technology and how it can help you and your firm;

• areas where technology can be helpful to your firm;

• how to choose, set up, employ, and maintain your chosen technology safely within the confines of your ethical responsibilities;

• and some of the multitude of tools available today.  

Following our discussion there will be a question and answer session for anything we didn’t cover, so please come with your questions ready.

Often, attorneys reach a point when they realize that legal skills, alone, are insufficient to deliver the rewards of their aspirations.  Running a practice is different, seldom taught in law schools and not necessarily intuitive.  Dick Cross’s Vision-Strategy-Execution method became the baseline for his two best-sellers and for The Mid-Tier President’s Course he authored and taught at Harvard.  Also, it has been the pivot point for every company he has run, and for many others where it lifted rewards beyond prior expectations.  Listen to Dick’s stories about his experiences and learn how to take Vision-Strategy-Execution back home and into your own practice.

Clients often tell us they want their plans to accomplish multiple aspects, such as protecting assets, securing income, reducing taxes and leaving a legacy for children, including those with special needs. They want to keep control and have full access to their wealth while also preparing to finance the looming costs of long-term care. With careful planning, all these things are possible. In this course, we’ll cover:

1.  What asset protection strategies work best, and how to identify risks and build a plan that protects wealth for multiple generations. 

2.  How your clients’ major assets fit into the plan, including IRAs, homes and real estate, investment accounts, life insurance, and businesses. 

3. How to use innovative and flexible trust planning to meet the costs of long-term care, even in a health crisis

4. Why employing a combination of insurance and legal planning can provide ultimate flexibility for clients in advance of chronic illness

5. What planning opportunities exist for your clients under the new tax code, and where the pitfalls are.

Consider a few of the powerful benefits of offering to serve as trustee for your clients:

• Stronger relationships with your clients

• Creating a competitive advantage, leading to more clients

• Greater likelihood that families will hire you to administer their trusts

• Additional and significant revenue source

• Dramatically increased firm value for law firm succession planning purposes

• Growth in “maintenance plan” participation

• More opportunities

At this presentation, you will learn why you should consider adding trustee services to your practice, the different levels of trustee services to consider offering, the potential risks of serving as trustee and how to greatly reduce these risks.

Even though the federal estate tax exemption is now $11.4 million per person and $22.8 million per married couple, there are still plenty of ultra-wealthy clients who need their estate planning done.  Supply and demand means that there are likely less attorneys specializing in this advanced planning since less clients need it.  However, this makes those attorneys who do this planning that much more valuable.  Attend this session to learn how the presenter plans for the ultra-wealthy so you keep your skillset sharp or at least know how to recognize opportunities.

Serving happy clients is enjoyable for those in a legal service role.  However, helping those who are not so happy can be stressful, demotivating, and costly to a law practice.  This course will outline the several types of difficult clients. We will give you tools to build rapport, set manageable expectations, work through problems, and manage stress.

Typically, lawyers are taught that they are the best at doing the work: developing strategies and systems for the firm. Often this results in their team members, frequently and unfortunately referred to as staff, being prevented from taking on leadership roles. Lawyers struggle to delegate. They become the “bottlenecks.” As a result, they are overworked, team members feel disempowered and disengage, productivity plummets, and profitability suffers. Check out this seminar to see an attorney and non-attorney from a successful and profitable estate planning firm discuss how to empower a team to success, maximize the talent of each teammate, and transform how both the lawyer and team member view their role in the firm.

 

When Medicaid Planning:

1.      Know the exceptions to the transfer penalty rules

2.      Consider the relevant variables in calculating the partial gift/promissory note amounts

3.      Consider drafting flexibility in a Medicaid plan in case your client's situation changes

4.      Have a tracking system in place for timely filings in connection with a Medicaid application

With over 35 years of experience, the Managing Partner of Russo Law Group and Founding Principal of ElderCounsel, Vincent J. Russo, shares practical examples of how a Medicaid plan has gone south and ways to avoid this from happening in your practice. Vincent will highlight some common pitfalls that every attorney should be aware of and strategies to implement successful Medicaid plans for your clients.

Good estate planning lawyers can identify issues and landmines with respect to the taxation of trusts and estates. You need not memorize the minutia of many rules guiding compliance, rather you simply need to understand how to spot issues and avoid problems. Join us for an overview of basic fiduciary income tax rules and planning techniques illustrating planning options and crucial drafting considerations.

You’re invited to an exclusive appreciation reception for Symposium attendees on a private island! Spend the evening with fellow attendees and take in stunning views of Boston while you enjoy a clambake dinner, open bar, and the evening sky.

This course addresses innovative approaches to estate planning that practitioners can incorporate into their practice. This discussion is particularly relevant due to the planning opportunities created by this year's changes to the tax laws. The techniques discussed can even benefit clients who do not have estate taxable estates, so it is paramount that practitioners keep abreast of recent developments.

Making a 3rd party special needs trust the beneficiary of a qualified plan in the right situation can provide quality of life to the beneficiary while saving thousands in taxes. Steve will go over accumulation trust rules, as well as utilization of the Qualified Distribution Trust Exemption and other tax tools, and through a series of case studies will demonstrate their use. In addition, Steve will take what attendees learn and demonstrate how to work with the client’s tax and financial advisors to create a distribution plan to coordinate expenditures and investments to get the best tax result possible.

This course will inspire us to push our lives and law firms into better shape; form deeper bonds with prospects and clients; stay connected to the people we love; keep alive the goals we cherish; and have a terrific time in the process!

 

Overview and Process

A. In formulating a business succession plan for a professional practice, there are four important choices:

               1. Emergency Transition Plans

               2. Sales to worthy candidates within the firm.

               3. ESOPs: Employee Stock Ownership Plans (not applicable for some professions)

               4. Sales to outside buyers.

B. We will discuss the benefits of each

C. Valuation for each technique will be considered

D. The process for each type of transition program will be outlined

 

Practical Tips and Suggestions

A. How to attract and satisfy candidates: The 3 “C’s”

B. Structuring an attractive Incentive Compensation Plan

C. Documenting the Program

Executive Director of Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers of PA Laurie Besden, JD, shares her compelling personal story of an insatiable drug addiction. In addition, she will address shocking statistics regarding the prevalence of substance use and mental health disorders in the U.S. legal industry and provide information on how to identify and help attorneys in distress due to substance use and mental health disorders. She will also identify the resources that are available to help, including an overview of LCL services. 

Join Ms. Besden for this in-depth telling of her recovery journey, including her eventual reinstatement to the practice of law.

This session covers:

1. Acknowledge the disease and recovery of addiction
2. Recognize the direct and indirect impact that substance use or mental health disorders has on every single person
3. Appreciate the prevalence of substance use and mental health disorders in the U.S. legal industry
4. Identify resources that are available and understand that there is always hope 

Dick Cross, brings years of experience as a CEO, leader of companies, and mentor to CEOs. In this presentation, Dick explains how sound business practices are crucial to the successful law practice.  Dick will articulate how WealthCounsel is uniquely positioned to help attorneys achieve business success.

Estate planning and elder law attorneys are tasked with carefully drafting trusts that memorialize their clients wishes. Practitioners should also draft trusts with tax efficiency in mind. With the estate tax exemption being what it is today (and what it will be for the foreseeable future), estate tax savings, while important, may not be as critical as it was in years past. Instead, practitioners should be focused on drafting trusts that include other tax savings strategies, including income taxes and capital gains.

This session will begin with a brief overview of basis planning: what is it and why is it important when drafting a trust. Next, we will discuss income tax considerations for current distributees of a trust.  Finally, we will discuss income allocation, including UPIA considerations.

How do you remain valuable and essential to your business client’s long-term goals? Stay relevant. Designed to equip you in your role as trusted advisor, this engaging yet informative session will review the year’s most important business law topics, examine new legislative developments, and highlight the key trends you need to know to help your business clients.

Join Jenny Villier and Temi Siyanbade as we unpack emerging trends in business law.

Some of the most difficult decisions clients have to make involve selecting the appropriate fiduciaries for their estate plan. This session will give you the knowledge you need to guide them in selecting executors, trustees, trust protectors, financial agents, and other fiduciaries. We will also demystify the "independent trustee" and "related or subordinate to" concepts by covering the related party rules of Section 672(c) and how they factor into fiduciary selection.

Attorneys make judgments daily, but what about when it comes to assessing clients with diminished capacity?  How do we know if we should enter into an attorney-client relationship with someone in question? Do we rely on our own instincts?  What are the Ethical Rules pertaining to lawyers representing clients with diminished capacity?*

We will explore and learn the following, and gain necessary tools to appropriately and ethically serve our clients:

• What is a “normal” relationship?
• Legal standards of diminished capacity
• The duty of confidentiality
• What is the attorney’s role?
• Is the lawyer qualified to assess capacity?
• The Approach and Process of assessing capacity
• Practical tips for ethically dealing with clients with diminished capacity

*(Based on ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct Rule 1.14)

Network in the HUB and our Exhibitor Room

WealthCounsel State Forum Leaders are invited to attend this special luncheon to celebrate all you do to help support your community.  

During this session you will get a sneak peak at the new product that WealthCounsel is developing to help make trust administration a seamless, efficient, and profitable part of your practice.

Get the most out of WealthCounsel® drafting! This course will help members identify specific tools and functionality to increase efficiency with the online drafting system. In addition, learn other ways to collaborate and leverage your resources to streamline procedures.

Description of a system of managing your daily activities, delegations, appointment details, projects, emails and more.  Fafinski will describe how he combines time management, human resources, scheduling tools and organizational systems in order to generate nearly a week’s worth of production in one day.  The described system includes “Getting Things Done,” inbox zero, block scheduling, by using onenote and case management software, to be able to be freely productive.  The system generates nearly a week's worth of work in one day, plus preparation.

This session will cover a summary of recent legislation, cases, and rulings from across the country in the areas of estate planning, asset protection, tax planning, and fiduciary law. And though we don’t have a crystal ball, we will explore how these developments may impact estate and tax planning, as well as advising fiduciaries, going forward. 

Wills require probate and are an invitation to contested proceedings. Trusts, however, are designed, planned and funded to avoid probate. But does even the most well-crafted trust centered plan avoid litigation? Like most court proceedings, trust litigation can be costly and may take years to resolve. In this session we will explore what procedures should be implemented and language to be used to avoid ambiguity in our documents, prevent certain issues from arising, and actually discourage litigation.

Network in the HUB and our Exhibitor Room

This session is a late addition and is not included in the CLE approved for this event. 

In the biggest bill for retirement planning in years, Congress is poised to change the law for life expectancy payouts to either a five- or ten-year payout.  This legislation has strong bipartisan support and is supported by the President. 

Lawyers will need to quickly pivot with innovative strategies for this new paradigm. If you wait until this bill is signed before beginning to pivot you will miss the 2019 planning opportunities. This class will cover:

 1) Understanding the dynamic change in life expectancy payouts on traditional and Roth IRAs

 2) Designing IRA trusts and the terrible payout result with RMD conduit trusts - the law and the math

 3) Decanting and reforming conduit trusts and even accumulation trusts

 4) Important UPIA “income” issues

 5) The impact of the loss of deferral and bracket compression on wealth transfer planning

 6) Using CRTs to maintain deferral and bracket management - the law and the math

 7) Roth conversions for better bracket management and greater wealth transfers

 8) Using IRA trusts in low tax states to achieve state tax savings by avoiding or delaying the state       

 taxation of the lump sum payout                                                                                                                                                            

 9) Using single life insurance to enhance bracket management - the unbiased math

10) Using Second-to-Die insurance to increase wealth transfer

11) Urgent action steps for ill and dying clients including avoiding conduit trusts and using out of state trusts.

12) Charitable remainder trust strategies for the mass-affluent and the wealthy

Before you go to dinner, join us for some networking, light appetizers, and drinks in The HUB on the Mezzanine level. 

Please plan to join us for light appetizers and an open bar in the Hub

This session is specifically designed for attorneys who have been in practice at least 20 years. As seasoned attorneys, we may no longer need to worry about “hustle, market, sell,” but mature practices bring different challenges. With our client base transitioning, how do we adjust our practices to adapt to changing client needs? What challenges do we face when we want to slow down, sell, merge or close our firms? What should we be doing now to ensure a smooth, financially sound retirement? At this facilitated roundtable session, come learn and share your experiences and ideas, tips and traps so together we can help each other transition our practices smoothly, smartly and successfully. You are welcome to get breakfast in The Hub and proceed downstairs to participate in this engaging discussion with similarly positioned peers.

This session will include a discussion of recent court opinions relating to asset protection trusts, fraudulent transfers, charging orders, and other forms of wealth preservation, along with hot topic planning issues such as the use of third-party grantor trusts and maximizing exemption planning.

The current estate planning environment requires planners to understand both the estate tax and the income tax. With low transfer taxes and high income taxes, basis is of significant concern. This course will cover the following topics:

• Basis of property acquired by gift
• Basis of property acquired from a decedent
• Basis of property sold to an intentionally defective grantor trust
• Basis of property transferred back to the donor after the death of the recipient
• Basis of nonqualified annuities, IRAs, and other items of IRD
• Basis in community and separate property states

This presentation will review five key drivers that impact the profitability of an estate planning practice with “real life” examples of how to impact and track improvements to each. Emphasis is on more than 30 practical tips lawyers can take to improve his or her practice.  Samples and tools are provided as appendices to the presentation.

Case Studies in Estate Planning for Retirement Benefits 

This presentation explains the problems of integrating retirement benefit assets into the estate plan in several typical client situations, particularly funding credit shelter trusts and QTIP trusts with retirement benefits, and looks at the advantages and disadvantages of various possible solutions.
It is common for an estate planning client to have a significant portion of his or her assets in IRAs, 401(k) plans, or other retirement plans. Because these assets have very different characteristics from investment assets held outside the retirement plan, they pose unique estate planning problems. The professional advisor's failure to recognize and properly deal with the unique characteristics of retirement benefits can cause financial losses to a client and his or her beneficiaries.

 

Death and Taxes: The Inherited Retirement Plan

This presentation reviews some planning and compliance issues and options facing the participant's survivors: the executor, trustee, or beneficiary who has inherited an IRA or other retirement plan.
As more and more retirement plan owners die leaving significant plan benefits to heirs, the question of how to advise the survivors (including fiduciaries) grows in importance. Advisors and plan administrators have tended to focus on the plan owner, and encounter a major knowledge gap when the account passes to the chosen beneficiaries. This seminar fills that gap by explaining issues that must be considered and providing practical answers to the problems that arise.

 

These presentations are beneficial for any professional who advises (1) clients who hold assets in IRAs, 401(k) plans or other retirement plans (2) regarding estate planning, retirement planning or investment issues.