How should my Estate Planning Attorney & Financial Planner work together?

Estate planning should be a part of every financial plan, which means that your financial team should always have an estate attorney in addition to your fee only financial planner.

If you have ever wondered how these two should work together well wonder no more.  I wrote a piece for the premier legal blog in Minnesota, epilawg, that addresses this question . Epilawg is a collaborative blog written by 4 lawyers and is a wonderful resource for estate planning, trusts, taxes, probate and other legal topics.  

Your Financial Planner is the Team Leader (ok I'm a little biased).  Most of the time you will have more contact with your financial advisor so they are better suited to help you manage your financial team.  They start by creating your personal financial plan, planning for retirement, and managing your investments.  Because they do all this work up front they should be able to help determine what kind of estate planning you may need and pass this along to your estate attorney.

Your estate attorney will be able to provide you with the best advice in regards to planning for the efficient transfer of your assets when you pass away as well as planning for incapacity.  They will also be the ones drafting your estate documents.

The key is to make sure your estate planner and financial planner are working together and communicating as your financial plan and estate plan are very closely related.  

The full article can be found here and is well worth checking out.