Lee R. Schroeder is an Ohio licensed attorney at Schroeder Law LLC in Putnam County. He limits his practice to business, real estate, estate planning and agriculture issues in northwest Ohio. He can be reached at Lee@LeeSchroeder.com or at 419-659-2058. This article is not intended to serve as legal advice, and specific advice should be sought from the licensed attorney of your choice based upon the specific facts and circumstances that you face.
When it comes to estate planning, knowing goals is the first step to getting great legal advice from lawyers. Clients who go into estate planning knowing specific goals are more likely to efficiently land on the right estate planning tools to achieve what they want. Attorneys can help clients analyze their priorities, but it’s much more efficient (and affordable) if a client goes into estate planning knowing what they truly want.
I recently engaged in a self-directed spiritual retreat, where I focused on identifying my goals and priorities in life. I have always known that I want everyone I know to get to heaven, but taking the time to sort through what that exactly means to me was immensely valuable.
Clients who do the same exercise of identifying goals and priorities are best positioned to get the best legal advice from their lawyers. In the context of estate planning, I initially ask clients for family and financial information laid out on paper. However, I also usually spend at least one meeting just getting to know the client’s values, beliefs, priorities, goals, fears, dreams, risk aversion and risk tolerance.
Read more about the importance of identifying goals to lead to successful estate planning in Lee’s article in the Lima News here: Legal-Ease: Knowing goals creates best estate plans
Source: LimaOhio.com, “Legal-Ease: Knowing goals creates best estate plans,” by Lee R. Schroeder, August 26, 2017