Everyone needs to put their hand up like this and pat themselves on the back. Because you guys just showed up at 8 AM on a Sunday to watch a lawyer speak without a slide deck also. So Mike, thank you for that introduction. Everything out there says Jennifer Rosell. I go by Jenny.

You'll learn that I'm a pretty informal person. And y'all just have to bear with me without my slideshow. So like Mike said, I am an owner and attorney at Indiana State and Elder Law. Do I have any Indiana folks in the room? Oh, like one, two? We're so close, guys.

Well, it's nice to see some Hoosiers in the audience. So as the firm name signals, all I do is estate and elder law. So this is what I live and breathe every single day. Also, as Mike mentioned, if you're a podcast person, I think podcasts are kind of a love-hate thing.

You either love them, or you're like, I don't even know how to listen to them. Please feel free to check out my podcast. It's Legal Tea. And I do a ton of different content, but my favorite ones are celebrity estate planning. They are notoriously terrible at estate planning. So if you kind of like that sort of stuff, I think you'll enjoy it.

So when I was preparing for this presentation, I really wanted to start with, what is that term estate planning even mean? Because I think that estate planning is kind of thrown around by different professionals, not wrongly. But what I mean by that is there's plenty of attorneys that do estate planning.

Financial advisors will state that they do estate planning. Tax professionals will state that they do estate planning. My session today is from the lawyer's perspective. All of us do estate planning, because what estate planning is is really managing your assets from a place of what your goals are, kind of join that with your family structure, and what your age is, the types of assets.

So all of these professionals do estate planning. But this session today, like my joke at the beginning, is from the lawyer's perspective, which is really about the documents that support us in the event of incapacity or in the event of we pass away. So not only did you guys show up to hear a lawyer talk about estate planning, but now it's 8 AM lawyer and talking about incapacity and death.

So OK, so really getting to the meat and potatoes of this presentation. So when I think of that term, estate planning, there are four themes or things as part of estate planning that I consider the core four. And I'm going to go through each one of them kind of thoroughly and strategically.

So oh, you're playing with my heart, tech people. I'm going to go through each one. So you guys should look at these core four as like really the basic ground level estate plan. So if you have embarked on an estate plan, these are kind of the four that are like your very basic plan.

But if you have not embarked on any estate planning, these are going to be the kind of the starter package, so to speak. So first and foremost is advanced directives. And I'm going to say kind of slash living will declaration. So these kinds of documents are specifically for health care decisions.

And more specifically, when we start talking about like end of life decisions, really fun things to talk about, I know. Welcome to my life. I talk about them every single day. These documents are really important because this is what gives you guys the power to express what your wishes are as it relates to health care decisions.

Anyone in the room-- I'm sure a lot of people in the room-- do you guys remember the name Terri Schiavo? Yes. If you don't, I'll give you the quick crash course. There was a young lady down in Florida. I think it was in maybe late '90s. She was in a persistent vegetative state.

Long story short, her husband and her parents went to like World War III over whether to keep her feeding tube in. And what I always tell people is we got the opinion of everyone. We got the opinion of politicians. We got the opinion of courts. We surely got the opinion from Nancy Grace.

We got a lot of people's opinion. But whose opinion was the most important one? Hers, Terri's. And that's the one we were missing. And so that case really shined a bright light on this set of documents I'm talking about, the Living Will Declaration and advanced directives, because that's what she was missing.

So when you think of estate planning, I think a lot of people's focus goes really to what happens when I pass away, or financial, or more legally focused. But health care decision making is equally as important when you embark on this process. So that's the first set, advanced directives slash Living Will Declaration.

Second set is a medical power of attorney or a health care representative. I'm trying to keep things very high level and more general, because as Mike mentioned, I am only in Indiana. Different states call these documents different things. And so you may see this document called Appointment of Health Care Representative.

That's what my state of Indiana calls it. But you may see health care power of attorney or medical power of attorney. So any of these, it just depends on what your state calls it. But they do effectively the same thing. So documents number two, or like the second theme of documents, is this health care power of attorney.

So this is the document that states, if I am unable to-- man, I thought that was my presentation again. If I'm unable to make health care decisions, who do I trust to make those for me? So that's the document that I state. Maybe it's my spouse, or maybe it's my children.

And just a little insider secret, it doesn't have to be your oldest child. I hear that all the time. It doesn't even have to be the child that lives down the street. I wish I could go on in more detail about this. But there's a set of factors that you should weigh when you pick people in all of these roles.

So yeah, it doesn't have to be the oldest child. But the primary purpose of this document is to put someone in a position to make your health care decisions for you if you're unable to do so. Number three is a financial power of attorney. So financial power of attorneys are specifically for people when they need to put someone in a position to help them with more financial and legal affairs.

So if you think about all these documents, a lot of the times these are not usually kicking in until something has happened, whether it's incapacity, whether it's death, which will be the documents that we talk about later. But most of the time, the financial power of attorney is a document that kicks in.

I mostly see it in my practice when people are-- they're dealing with some sort of cognitive impairment. So think dementia, Alzheimer's, that sort of thing. I always tell people, just because we are in that yucky situation doesn't mean the bills stop coming. It doesn't mean that we get a pass on filing taxes.

And that's what the power of attorney's responsibility is, is to keep your financial affairs, financial management afloat and under control. As I talked about with Christine in her book, you will-- and I could go on for hours about this too, but there are many types of financial power of attorneys for varying different situations.

So sometimes you'll see power of attorneys that really-- oh. OK, if I stand on one leg, maybe it'll pop up. There's many different types of power of attorneys. So you may see them limit the scope of the powers. So there's some that say, hey, I'm only going to give you the power to do this one thing.

But you may see different power of attorneys that give someone much more-- or all powers, really. There's also power of attorneys that limit the scope on when they become effective. So just be very mindful as to when you do a power of attorney, be very mindful that you're choosing the type that is appropriate for your situation.

The last one, number four in my core four, is a last will and testament. So that's probably the most well-known document in my world. I always tell people that a last will and testament, it doesn't mean diddly squat until we pass away. So that's when that document becomes effective.

And it states-- it primarily does two things. You'll see wills be five pages. You'll see wills be 50 pages. And even in the 50-page wills, they're still really kind of doing two things at its core. So the first thing a will does is it states, who's in charge after I pass away?

So who is the ringleader of the circus? Secondly, it states who gets my stuff, who gets my assets, in what way? So when I say in what way, what I'm really talking about is in terms of maybe we're putting parameters around their inheritance, like staggered distributions based on age or something like that.

But wills, they do those two things and two things only. And from kind of a 50,000-foot overview, those four that I just talked about are the most basic level. And sometimes those four are completely sufficient. And sometimes you don't need any more. But at the end of the day, those are kind of the basic documents at play.

One of the biggest mistakes I see people make all the time is really dealing with how assets are owned. And generally speaking, there's those three asset ownership or ways to set assets up. So that first one, individually owned assets. So when I say individually owned assets, it's quite literally what that is meaning.

It is one person's name on that asset and no beneficiaries attached. That is usually going to be the only type of asset that is controlled by a last will and testament. A lot of people don't realize that. A lot of people think that wills just throw on their superhero cape when we pass away and take care of everything.

I wish it was that easy. We should know that things aren't that easy. So that is the only kind of category of an asset that's going to be controlled by a will. And then that third bullet under that individually owned asset category, we're going to talk about probate in my next slide and what it is.

But that's usually going to be the only category that's going to force us to kind of entertain whether probate is going to be a part of our life or part of our estate administration. Every state has a different threshold as to whether we're going to have to go through probate.

So what I mean by that is if I use Indiana, for example, for the two people in here that live in my state, Indiana, for example, our threshold is 100,000. So what that means and what I'm talking about is that if the assets that fit that category of one person's name on the asset with no beneficiaries attached exceed 100,000, we are going through the probate process.

Whether we have a will or not, that's another big misconception. So that may be something to write down is what is my state's probate threshold? Because every state's different. Second category is beneficiary designated assets. So this is just like what it states. Think of like retirement accounts, life insurance policies.

A lot of times those-- a lot of times, not all-- those kind of assets have a beneficiary designated on them. So when we pass away, that asset is going to go to the designated beneficiary. I have a slide towards the end of my presentation that I'm probably not going to get to, since we've got a little bit of a late start.

But it was really about kind of real life cautionary tales that I've worked on. And this is one of them, where people don't realize that if there's a conflict between a beneficiary designation on an asset and a will, the beneficiary designation is going to win. So I am just wrapping up a case right now where a gentleman passed away, and he left his ex-spouse on his IRA and life insurance.

His daughter wasn't happy about that, as she should. And so it's turned into a very messy administration, because you have to consider the fact that maybe he intended to do that. He's passed away now. We can't just make things up. We don't think he probably wanted that to happen, but that's assuming.

So beneficiary designated assets, those assets at death go to whoever the beneficiaries listed are. They're not controlled by your will. Last type of asset type is jointly owned assets. So what I mean by this is two or more people on an asset, so you think of a joint bank account, for example.

Let's use a joint bank account as an example. If I own-- me and my husband are both on a bank account. At my death, that is going to go to my husband. It's not going through the will. It is just merely as a product of the type of asset ownership.

It's joint. My last little bullet there, you have to be very-- what's the word-- hypersensitive of property when it comes to joint ownership. When I say property, what I mean is like houses, farmland, because I'm from Indiana. Property ownership is a little funky. So just know from this bullet if it's like joint ownership on a house, don't assume it's going to automatically go to that joint owner.

And they have a whole class in law school on property ownership. So it just can be tricky, and you need to be very mindful of it. OK, probate. That is a word that cracks me up, because I will meet with prospects or clients in my office, and I'll ask them about what their goals are, what they're trying to accomplish.

And a lot of times, they'll say, I want to avoid probate. And I'll say, OK, what do you think probate is? They're like, well, my great aunt told me that I need to avoid it. I'm like, OK. So I made a slide specifically about probate to kind of give you good factual information on what this word even means.

So probate is a process that happens sometimes when we pass away. And the sometimes piece is because of that last slide. It depends on the type of assets when we pass away. And if there are assets in that individually owned category with no beneficiaries attached, like I said, whether we have a will or not, sometimes they're going through this probate process.

It is a court process. And from there, I think there's a lot of professionals that will try just to scare the bejesus out of you on what this process is. And I come from a place of always really not doing the whole fear tactic thing, but more of an educational side.

And when I say non-negotiables about probate, what I'm talking about on this slide is that these are the three things that you have to decide really whether you care about these three things. And if you don't, then maybe probate's just a formality sometimes when we pass away. So hitting on the should I be scared or concerned first.

Should I be scared or concerned? My favorite lawyer answer in the entire world is it depends. It depends primarily on two things, on what you're trying to accomplish, as well as your state. And I hate to be so kind of general about it, but some states' probate process is a nightmare.

Some states' probate process isn't so bad. And so like, for example, California, if there's any California folks in the room, they have a pretty brutal probate process. I just saw you raise your hand, and you're like, yep. They have a pretty brutal probate process. So it is very common to cite that as a reason when someone embarks on an estate planning process is to avoid that probate process.

Indiana's not that bad. I do probate all the time, and I don't even set foot in the courthouse. Everything's electronically filed. I don't handle any contested cases. So my state's not too bad. But these non-negotiables, just to hit on them, regardless of your state, when I say time, public record, and cost, those are the things that are going to occur with probate regardless of your state.

When I say time, what I mean by that is specifically, it's not going to happen overnight. I always set the expectation for my clients in Indiana, it's going to minimally take about six months. But realistically, it's probably going to take about a year. And there's just parts of the process that I just can't speed up.

It is like statutorily, like I have to sit and twiddle my thumbs for three months for creditors to make claims on the estate, whether someone has creditors or not. So there's just part of the process I just can't speed up. So that's time. Public record, if you don't know this, anytime you're going to the courthouse, it's part of public record.

So I have some clients that are like, if my nosy neighbor Nancy finds out what's going through my estate, I would just roll over in my grave. Sorry if there's any Nancys in the room. So public record sometimes is a concern for people. I always say, a lot of people don't know where to go to look, to look up this kind of stuff.

So I don't give that too much thought. Lastly is cost. When I say this, I typically kind of make-- I'm a lawyer, yes. But I make lawyer jokes all the time, because most of them are actually warranted. From a cost standpoint, it makes me laugh, because a lot of attorneys will say, oh, the probate cost.

Oh, the probate cost. It's mostly the legal fees. Yeah, sure, there's some filing fees with the county, and maybe some publication fees for the newspaper. Because we have to-- at least in Indiana, we have to publish the estate in a newspaper. I swear that we're the only ones that are keeping newspapers afloat.

So if there's anyone that works in a newspaper in the room, you could verify that for me. But cost, sometimes probate can be costly from a legal fees standpoint. It just depends on the complexity of the estate, what's going on. There's kind of two different schools of thought, from a cost perspective.

Sometimes attorneys will charge hourly, which is typical. The other type of way to charge in probate land is through a percentage. So a percentage of the estate is their legal fee. I always say you have to sprinkle a dose of reasonableness on there. I think sometimes lawyers forget to sprinkle that reasonableness on there.

But nonetheless, those are the three non-negotiables. Should you be scared or concerned? You need to work with someone in your state, someone like me that does a state as their normal field, and just kind of prompt them on this conversation and gather whether your state has a complex and annoying probate process.

So how am I doing on time? OK. A lot of times people will entertain trust planning as a part of an estate plan. Do all people need trust? No. Do a lot of people need trust? Yes. If you are working with an attorney that just shells out trust day after day, maybe not the attorney to work with.

It just really depends on the goals that the client's trying to accomplish. It really depends on the family dynamics and family setup. It depends on the types of asset. But at the end of the day, a lot of people do choose to do trust planning as part of their estate plan.

And I'd be doing you guys a disservice if I didn't at least kind of give you a little bit of the 411 on trust planning. At its core, there are so many types of trust, guys. Lots of them. And us lawyers have these like weird nicknames for them. It's kind of-- I don't know.

It's like job security or something. Crack, crut, eyelet. It's like a whole weird different language. But of all those types of trust, really at the end of the day, you can kind of first break up types of trust by how they were created. And what I mean by that is testamentary trust and living trust are kind of-- they're like kind of the first basic step of identifying the type of trust that it is.

So a testamentary trust is a trust that's created in your last will and testament. I paid a lot of money to go to law school to learn that. Nonetheless, I see a lot of times with testamentary trust that are the kind that are created in the last will and testament.

A lot of times, those are what I like to refer to them as like standby trusts. So what I mean by that are things like, OK, maybe we're a young family and we're just trying to get our core four done. But maybe we have some minor kids that we want to put some perimeters around and how they inherit.

So there may be a standby trust inside people's wills to say, OK, I don't want little Susie to inherit at 18. I want little Susie to inherit maybe a little bit at 18, a little bit at 21, 25, 30, whatever. So to accomplish something like that is going to be likely using a trust inside of your will.

And I say it's a standby trust because maybe you survive, ideally. And little Susie is 60, 70 years old when you die. So none of these little standby provisions are even applicable. So they're just there just in case something happens. Another kind of standby I see all the time with testamentary trusts are special needs trusts.

So if we have any disabled or special needs beneficiaries in our lives, it breaks my heart when I hear people say, oh, I can't leave Johnny anything of my estate because he's special needs and he's on Medicaid. Hear me loud and clear. You can leave those kind of folks in inheritance.

They just have to be done in a very intentional and strategic way. And that's often done through a special needs trust. Whether that special needs trust is a testamentary trust in your will, or maybe it's a freestanding one. And what I mean by freestanding is a nice segue to that living trust.

So if you think about it, a testamentary trust is created after we die because that's when the last will and testament kicks into action. A living trust is one that's created while you are living. So these are the common ones that you may have family, friends, or maybe yourself, like a revocable living trust.

That's a very popular kind of trust out there. That is a type of a living trust because it's a trust that you create while you're living. We're not waiting for it to activate after we pass away. We're activating it now. So just to hit on a few of the more popular ones I see, like I said, revocable living trust, that's a very common one to do to avoid that probate process.

I also see it all the time for individuals that have a very specific type of distribution that they're wanting to accomplish. So think maybe we have a beneficiary that has some personal issues going on. Maybe they're either terrible with money. Maybe there's an addiction as part of the planning part of this.

A lot of times, we're using more advanced planning to accommodate them. Irrevocable trust planning, those are most often used either for tax planning. I wish I had a few extra minutes to talk about taxes, but I don't. But they're often used for estate tax planning purposes. I use them all the time in my office for asset protection trust planning, specifically for long-term care and helping people qualify for Medicaid-- not Medicare, Medicaid-- down the road.

So I use irrevocable trust all the time for people that have that goal. Charitable trust, if you're charitably inclined, there's many types of trust out there that allow you to support your favorite charitable organizations while receiving tax benefits along the way. And special needs trust, I talked about. You can actually create them now.

You can create them while you're living. If you plan on gifting to that individual now-- I set those up quite often, too. One last note on this slide before I think probably we're shifting to questions. Funding a trust. I always tell people, oh, you have extra time. Yay. It's like a little love note.

OK, funding a trust. If you do a trust as part of your estate plan, also hear me loud and clear on this, too. Funding-- there's like three general steps when you create a trust. Create it, fund it, which I'm going to talk about in a second, and grow with it.

Because estate planning is not usually a one-time thing. You've got to keep massaging it and keep it applicable to what your current situation is. So that second part, after we have the trust created-- so we've got the document. We've signed it. The next step, the next vital step that people miss all the time is funding it.

Funding it is changing the ownership of your assets or modifying beneficiary designations to support the actual trust document. If you do not fund-- if you don't get the trust funded, if you don't change ownership, if you don't modify your beneficiaries, the trust may not work at all. It could be a pile of paper that you paid way too much money for.

And so funding a trust, I consider as part of setting-- if I'm doing a trust for someone, that is part of our process is to help them get it funded. But I cannot tell you the number of prospects and clients that I see that bring this honking big binder to my office and they flop it on the table.

And I'm looking through it, and I just casually-- because I've done this too many times-- casually say, so what's in this trust? Did you move your house in? Is your brokerage in here? And they just look, and they're like, what? I don't think so. And I'm like, oh, am I going to be the bearer of bad news?

Well, not really the bearer of bad news, but now we got to play clean up. So if you do a trust, or if you have a trust, make sure you get the thing funded. If I work with someone like that, if the trust that they already have is fine and dandy, we may have to amend it a tiny bit.

But otherwise, sometimes they'll hire me just to help get it funded, because maybe there wasn't an emphasis on that when they set it up, or maybe life got in the way, and they just totally forgot to get it done. But nonetheless, very, very important to get that done. Give me-- oh, I thought I had one more.

Yes, this, OK. Should we go to questions, or can I do like one horror story? Horror stories, OK. Oh, which one do I want to do? Well, I already talked about that first one. So the ex-spouse is a beneficiary in IRA and life insurance. Long story short, what happened with that is basically, they ended up settling.

Because like I said earlier, we don't know. There was actually a little bit of a strained relationship between dad and daughter. And so there was an argument to be made that maybe he just left the ex-spouse on there from a place of like, I don't know who else to leave, so maybe he did it intentionally.

So in that case, they ended up settling. Ex-spouse did get to walk away with stuff with part of the gentleman's IRA and life insurance. Which one do I want to do? And then I'll shift to questions. I'll do that next one, actually. Because I think I've talked about beneficiaries with addictions and Medicaid.

Those just require special planning, guys. I know it's not fun to talk about the elephant in the room things, but I can't do my job if I don't know about them. But when I do know about those elephant in the room things, I look like a superstar because I can do such awesome things for those types of individuals and beneficiaries.

So that's just a subtle encouragement, just to be very honest with whoever you work with from an estate planning attorney standpoint. OK, so I'll do that next bullet, that put nephew as beneficiary, but Will had seven nieces and nephews. So this case, long story short, lady passed away. Her Will had seven nieces and nephews listed as beneficiary, but she was one of those people that had lots of CDs.

She would be like a CD chaser. We all know them. Maybe you're one of them. She would go to lots of different banks and find the highest interest rate. Long story short, she passed away, and all of her assets had just one of the-- it was one of the nephews-- just one nephew on as beneficiary on everything.

So the Will had, hey, I want to split it between these seven people, but then on the actual beneficiary, it had this one person. And so we got it cleaned up, but this is a little bit of a cautionary tale horror story because that family had to pay me more to clean it up because generously, the nephew that was listed, he was like, I know this is what she wanted to share, so I'm going to disclaim and let it go to the other six, between all seven.

So I mean, I had to do a significant amount of extra work to accommodate what this person was trying to accomplish. So it's just a lesson in making sure-- kind of what I was blabbing about earlier of really making sure that we get our assets in a place to really support what we're trying to accomplish.

It's single-handedly. The biggest misconception-- or biggest mistake that I see people make is they do this-- they do their estate plan, and then they fail to really take a look at their assets and get it to support those documents. OK, I'm ready for Shark Tank questions. Thank you so much, Jenny.

Yeah. If I was the one up here yesterday without my slides, my little introvert stage fright heart would have just collapsed and died in front of all of you. So can we get some applause for Jenny, please? Oh. You also have at least three times as many questions as anybody else has got.

I see a pile. OK, for those who are young and in good health, is it still important to do trust estate planning in your 30s or 40s? And if you change your mind later in life, should we contact lawyers again to update the will? Yes. Kind of like I was saying earlier about estate planning should grow with you, it is vital for those in their 30s and 40s that may have minor kids to get guardianship provisions as part of their estate plan.

Vital to get that in place. And then as far as updating it in the future, you don't have to use the attorney that you used back then, unless you contracted with them and said, like, you're going to be my attorney forever. But that would be weird. Find someone that you like.

Make sure that-- yeah, find someone you like. It pains me when people say, oh, I have to go back to my dad's lawyer back home. And I'm like, no, you don't. No, you don't. Can you speak to when the deceased and the beneficiaries are in different states? Whose laws apply?

It depends. That's only the second time I've said that. Kind of impressive. So it primarily depends-- so from an estate administration standpoint, it's going to be the state in which the decedent, the deceased person, died, unless they have property in other states. So I have a lot of clients that will have their primary residence in Indiana, but maybe they have a house in Florida or Arizona or something.

Those are going to be-- those assets are going to be dictated by those other states' laws. But the only caveat I would place on why I said it depends is because some states still have inheritance tax. Not all of them, but some do. And if the beneficiary lives in a state that still has inheritance tax-- excuse me-- the inheritance tax is going to apply.

Oh, no, do you live in an inheritance-- That's me. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, it's a small list, and it seems to be decreasing. But if the beneficiary does live in a state that has an inheritance tax, that's going to apply to them. And is it true that at the state level, it matters whether it's an inheritance tax or an estate tax?

Say that again. At the state level, does it matter whether it's an inheritance tax or an estate tax? Yes, because they're very different. Inheritance tax and estate tax are very different. Inheritance tax is taxed on the beneficiary, while estate tax is taxed on the estate. And even more confusing, there's federal estate tax, which I think it's $13.61 million per person currently.

They're talking about making that lower. So just FYI, keep an eye on that. But some states also have an estate tax. So yeah, be mindful of that. Please discuss the pros and cons of a springing versus non-springing power of attorney. Oh, gosh. OK. So springing power of attorneys often spring into action upon some sort of trigger, some sort of event.

So I normally see these where a springing power of attorney, say, for example, doesn't come into action until documented incapacity, which could be problematic, because doctors often don't like just going around declaring people incapacitated. And so I typically recommend-- and I actually talked about this in Christine's book, the section I helped her with.

I typically recommend a general durable power of attorney. And I say-- and the opposite of durable is springing. So they kind of conflict with each other, because durable kind of grants it immediately, grants authority immediately. But I always tell people-- like, that was a lot of legalese. And what I always tell people is, if you trust the person to be in the document, you probably should trust the person not to do any funny business, even though you're fine and dandy.

And so that's why I typically recommend a general durable power of attorney for clients. If I move out of state, should I redo my estate plan? And what about my trust? If you move out of state, I always encourage people to have an estate attorney in the new state take a look at the documents.

Because I was talking to Mike, actually, right before this session, that annoyingly, they really put the thumb down on us attorneys in terms of licensure. So I can only help people-- the two people in this room that are from Indiana-- I'm joking. But at the end of the day, you have to make sure that it's doing not only what you want it to do, but also in compliance with wherever your state of residency is.

And so every state may have different laws, and you need to be cognizant of that. A lot of times, it doesn't require a whole rewrite, but it may require a little bit of a shift or an amendment to get in compliance with the new state. How do you feel about a spouse being medical power of attorney?

Does that put them in too emotional of a situation? Oh, I kind of want to know who asked that. I would say, generally speaking, most people put their spouse as medical power of attorney primary, most. Very rarely do I see people say, they're going to be too emotional. You have to put yourself-- a lot of us have probably been in a situation where there's a major medical decision that has to be made.

The emotions are quite high. And sometimes people have concerns around whether their spouse can look at things from a more fact-based, less emotional approach. So most of the time, most, a heavy majority, like 99.99999% of the time, people put their spouse as primary. But ever so often, I'll have someone say, you know what?

I don't want to put that burden on them. And that's the beautiful thing about state planning. You've got to do what works well for you and your family. So that segues into this one. These are two almost identical questions. Is it best, and separately, is it most common to divvy the estate equally among the children?

Or is it best to leave more to each child based on their financial status? That's a ooh. I like the ooh. Again, typically, most people do equally between their kids. Though I have heard people say before where they may do an unequal approach if their relationship is strained, where maybe there's just like-- there's some-- I don't know what the word I'm looking for is.

But there's something between maybe like the parent and the child. And they don't have it in their heart to disinherit them. But they'll leave them maybe a smaller amount. The only other thing I've heard on that topic is whether you should consider if you have a child that's like someone that's making a lot of money versus-- let's say one child that's a doctor, one child that's a social worker.

I really try hard not to put my personal opinion in things. I don't think it's my job to say like, well, you shouldn't penalize the doctor in this situation. But at the end of the day, you have to do what feels good in your heart and your brain. I have done some situations where I just-- in my heart, I didn't agree with what the client was doing.

Client didn't know that. But you just have to do what's best for you. And while I'm on the topic of when I said about maybe a strained relationship with the child, if you do choose to disinherit a child, please do not leave them a dollar. Don't do it. It's bad.

You're making them a beneficiary. And beneficiaries are entitled to certain parts of notice and accountings and things like that. So it's like an old school approach to do that. I'm going to leave you a dollar to disinherit you. Bad, bad, bad, bad. Can transfer upon death property avoid probate?

Yes. Yeah, transfer on death is a-- transfer on death and payable on death are technically a beneficiary. So when I was talking earlier about the different ways to own assets, we had individually owned. That second one was beneficiary designated. Transfer on death and payable on death are types of beneficiary designations.

You have to be very mindful, though, of-- I've also seen everything in my world just feels like it's-- if it's too good to be true, it is. That's a really helpful, easy way to avoid probate. There are some considerations there that you need to walk through in your head that I at least help clients walk through.

So if you put a transfer on death on a house to maybe three kids, I really hope those three kids know how to work well together. Because if they don't, we could be in a world of hurt just because we were trying to avoid probate, which we did. But now they're fighting because we can't agree on something.

So just make sure you're-- when you think about your goals, like, OK, if we want to avoid probate, great. Let's make sure we understand all the consequences of what we're choosing to do. How do I find a good estate lawyer? And what questions should I ask them when interviewing?

You need to find-- you don't need to. I would encourage you to find an attorney when you embark on an estate process that does this day in and day out. The kind of annoying thing about the law is that when we come out of law school, we can really do any type of field that we want.

So I could technically help people with a divorce or a bankruptcy or criminal DUI or whatever. Do I know how to do any of those things? No, not at all. I wouldn't even know where to begin. But my law license says that I could. So the difficult thing is that if you find an attorney that does all these different kinds of fields, they may be stretched a little too thin on their knowledge.

Like, our brain is only so big. And you can only-- I would encourage you to work with someone that does-- has really reined in their practice areas and knows them really deeply, rather than someone that does a lot of different practice areas and is kind of just ever so-- knows a lot, but not a lot of a lot.

Within the estate planning field, should I assume that an estate planning attorney can also help with the estate tax planning? Or is that a separate area of expertise? It is technically a separate area. It's actually something you and I were about to start talking about before this session, that even within the estate planning space, there's almost different areas of estate planning.

There's estate tax planning. There's elder law. I do-- a big part of my practice is elder law planning. And so if you have estate tax concerns, make sure that person knows. And a lot of times, you can look, and I think that was part of the question, the prior question, is like, how do I know someone knows how to do this?

One, if the lawyer actually has a website, which I say that totally seriously, because not a lot of lawyers have a website. That's weird. But look at their bio. Look to see what kind-- like Mike mentioned earlier, I belong to the probate trust, real property section, the elder law division, the estate division.

That's what I live and breathe. But if you see people that are hanging out in like criminal division, that's probably not going to be someone that you should work with to do your estate planning. Yeah, so be conscious of that. If you have estate tax concerns, make sure you're working with someone that knows those weird acronyms that I said earlier, like CRETS and CRETS and ILETS and SLATS.

I think we have to wrap up. I know, it's sad. Thank you so much for your time.