You’ve worked hard to provide for your family and make your loved ones more secure. Have you set aside time to consider the root of your success and the meaning of your wealth? the impact you wish to leave on your family? and the world at large?
Often, much is lost in transferring wealth from one generation to the next. If you don’t act intentionally, and discover options you may have never considered, your values and ideals – the very things that made you successful – may not be transferred to the next generation and beyond. In the process, the IRS and FTB will often take their share. Significant assets can be exhausted in the hands of inheritors. The statistics say that your entire estate will be depleted in 18 months after it hits the accounts of your children or other beneficiaries.
We believe that your legacy deserves more attention than it gets in traditional models of “advanced estate planning” and at Bay Laurel Law, P.C., we assist successful families through our Laureate Process for integrated wealth planning. This unique approach goes beyond estate planning and delves into family dynamics and philosophies, and how to manage and transfer wealth in a way that influences your family tree as generations pass. As part of the process, you will receive the benefits that most concern you, and likely:
- Better understand your family dynamics and financial situation
- Gain clarity about what want for your family and the future
- Enjoy better control over your personal, family & business affairs
- Assure the continuity of your lifestyle
- Protect your assets and minimize risk
- Optimize the value of your business interests, plan for continuing success
- Pass values, responsibility and work ethic to your children
- Substantially reduce income, gift, estate and generation skipping taxes
- Keep your affairs private, free from publicity and governmental interference
The Laureate Process
Our Laureate Process includes three separate engagements, giving you control at each step along the way:
Introductory Visit
Before engaging our firm, our Laureate clients have an opportunity to meet us in person, and for us to gain an overview of your unique situation and concerns. This brief visit is designed to provide you an opportunity to begin a personal relationship with our firm, to give us an overview of your most pressing concerns and desires, and to determine if our firm will be able to assist. During this complimentary meeting, we will explain our planning process and, if we feel that we can be of particular value to you, invite you to move forward with the Review Engagement.
Review Engagement: Clarity of Problem
Gathering the Data
When you engage our firm to review your affairs to gain a complete understanding of your situation and goals, we will quote a fee for the Review Engagement, and then proceed to gather all relevant documents and information. It is usually more information than anyone has ever asked for, and at the end of the process, you will be sure to have clarity and organization in your personal affairs.
Evaluation
Within 30 days of receiving your information and documents, we will conduct a thorough review and evaluation to determine if, at a minimum, we can save you significant taxes and expenses.
Initial Visit: The Retreat
As part of the Review, we hold a day-long retreat with you, your loved ones, business partners, and your other trusted advisors. Away from your normal responsibilities, we help you to discover your enlightened dreams for your family and wealth. The goal of the Retreat is to understand your every estate planning nuance and desire and to heighten and expand your expectations. Your detailed input is essential to prepare an appropriate and effective Wealth Strategies Plan.
At the end of our Review Engagement, you will be presented with an organized portfolio, easily accessible and understandable to you and your advisors.
Design Engagement: Clarity of Solution
Analyze and Test
In collaboration with your team of trusted advisors, we analyze, test, and challenge combinations of planning theories and strategies for the allocation, distribution, and protection of your assets. We determine which options will best fulfill your stated needs and desires for yourself and your loved ones. This Preliminary Plan is enhanced by the contribution of the entire team of a client’s advisors.
Building the Plan
Through the use of narratives, graphs, charts, models, and schedules, our firm and the other advisors build every aspect of your comprehensive and understandable Estate Plan. While there is no perfect answer, we strive for the optimal impact within a manageable plan.
Presenting the Preliminary Plan
We then meet with you and your Advisor Team to walk through the big picture and then the finer points of the preliminary Integrated Wealth Strategies Plan design. We facilitate a critique of the plan to ensure that it is truly tailored to meet and exceed your every expectation. During this critique, we note every reaction, critique, and idea in order to further tailor the plan.
Presenting the Enhanced Plan
We present the fine-tuned plan with the enhancements and set fees, timelines, responsibilities for the Implementation of the plan. The infinitely complex plan is transformed into an understandable and workable model.
Implementation Engagement: Putting the Plan to Work
We review and confirm all aspects of the plan with you. With your understanding and approval, we assign every detail of the plan to the appropriate advisors for immediate action. Each advisor provides you with a detailed plan and implementation schedule.
Confirmation
During this celebratory visit, we answer any remaining questions and present you with your completed Integrated Wealth Strategies Plan.
THE BAY LAUREL COUNSELOR PROGRAM: Continuity of Relationship
After becoming intimately involved with the lives of your family, many clients want to keep us involved. Through our Counselor Program, we will be available to you as needed on an ongoing basis to address concerns as they arise and to keep your Plan current. In the tradition of the old-fashioned family lawyer, we created the Bay Laurel Counselor Program to give you the opportunity to enjoy continuity in our relationship by placing us on retainer.
It is our greatest joy to design understandable solutions that allow you to align your family, business, goals, dreams and happiness, and to help you to understand the solutions, their benefits and how they will work for you and your family.
Through the Laureate Planning Process, you can discover solutions for balancing wealth, real estate, charity, business and asset protection with your values, beliefs, family concerns and ultimately the mark you wish to leave on this world.