Friday, April 23, 2010 Your Family Is One-Of-A-Kind; Your Estate Plan Should Be As Well
According to statistics the average U.S. family size is 3.2 members. The median age of a man upon his first marriage is 28.1, the median age of a woman is 25.9. Also according to statistics, approximately 60% of couples own their home, 70.7% of mothers with children under the age of 18 go back to work, and 6% of men are likely to be unemployed.
Do these statistics accurately portray your family?
“Average,” “median,” and “approximately” may be fine for statistics, but it’s certainly not what you want from your estate plan. Your estate plan should represent your family; your hopes for the future as well as your current needs. This may include a nomination of guardian and education trust for young children, it may include a special needs trust for your disabled adult child, or it may include incentive trusts for unambitious heirs. Alternatively, you may find that you need none of these, and that a will and simple ancillary documents will serve you just fine.
Whatever your family’s needs may be, you want them to be met by a keen, compassionate, and knowledgeable attorney; someone who will meet you face to face and listen to your concerns with an open mind, not a machine which will spit out a standard document based on numbers and averages. Estate planning may be a business, but it’s also an art, and as such it takes a real person to help create the plan that will provide for you and your family now and in the years to come. The members of our firm have our own families, we understand that you want the best for your family, and we want to help. |