First, here are some things you should bring to the initial meeting:
- Copies of your existing Wills and Trusts, if you have them
- Copies of your powers of attorney for property and medical decisions, and your directive to physicians (your so-called “living will”)
- Your completed Confidential Personal Information Sheet
If you are not able to gather all of the documents together in advance of the initial meeting, don’t worry. Keep your appointment and just work on gathering the rest after your first meeting with your attorney.
Here are some of the things you should be thinking about before that first meeting:
- The People You Trust. The individuals you trust to be in charge if you can’t, as:
- Your Agent to make health care decisions in the event you are unable to make them yourself;
- A Guardian of your minor children, if any;
- The Executor of your Will (the person who settles your estate if your Will has to be probated);
- A Trustee of any trust that may be created as a part of your estate plan (the person or corporation who agrees to follow your instructions in the trust to pay bills, manage money and investments, and make other financial decisions on behalf of you or your future beneficiaries):
- while you are alive and able
- while you are alive, but unable to make your own decisions, and
- after your death
- The People You Want to Benefit. Consider the ones you ultimately want to bless by giving them a portion of your property after your death, specifically:
- Generally how each beneficiary is doing. Are they healthy, stable and successful?
- Are they financially responsible and able to handle the receipt of a share of your estate, or have they shown they have difficulty managing money wisely?
- Are their marriages are sound, or somewhat shaky?
- Do they have any physical, emotional, or psychological challenges that might require any of them to need special protection from predators, creditors, or even themselves?
- Do you want to protect their inheritance from you to ensure that your beneficiaries – and I mean only your beneficiaries – can benefit from your property, so that their share of your estate could not be lost to risks of life your heirs can’t control (like divorce, lawsuits, or creditors, even of their spouse, or unexpected physical or business catastrophes)?
- End of Life Decisions. Consider whether, in the future, if you were suffering from a terminal medical condition from which you are not expected to recover, you would want your body to be kept alive by life support systems and feeding tubes, or whether you would want those extraordinary measures withheld.