As estate planning attorneys, the single best way to serve each of our clients is by participating as one part of a larger estate planning team. To collaborate most effectively, and help our clients succeed, we all need to leave our egos at the door, be absolutely committed to next level communication, and make our client, along with their often-heartfelt objectives and their comprehensive personal financial plan, our center points.

Our estate planning team would likely include the following members: 

• Attorney
• CPA
• Wealth Manager
• Elder Attorney
• Social Security Attorney
• Business Growth Coach
• Certified Valuation Appraiser
• Fractional Chief Financial Officer
• Fiduciary Life Insurance Professional
• Special Needs Advocates
• Geriatric Care Managers
• Elder Transition Consultants
• Professional Trustees 

How does a professional team approach create a far better way of serving and advising clients?

Having a professional team can dramatically increase our clients’ success in achieving their financial objectives because we can capitalize on specialized expertise. The team approach significantly increases our ability to do more with less, achieving efficiency and effectiveness. We see how long-term client relationships are strengthened by fostering connections that go beyond us achieving a greater impact than expected. The impact is wide ranging and with the right team in place we have a greater ability to advise on important ancillary matters including:

• Retirement income
• Family legacy
• Business succession
• Asset protection
• Tax mitigation
• Risk management
• Elder protection
• Social security or Medicaid eligibility

With our clients’ need to manage such a broad palate of issues and increased level of complexity, we must help by becoming advocates for a commensurate level of specialized expertise, which can only be realized by employing a collaborative team. 

A highly effective professional team only works with a strong advocate at the helm, with an authentic voice and an inspiring vision. Someone needs to facilitate the discovery process and a deepening belief in the wisdom and efficacy of the team approach itself. Case studies, real client family stories, and demonstrable results, can pave the way and prove to those you are desiring to include on your expanded estate planning team, not only that this can work (many of us may have come to cynically believe it cannot) but that it must work, as it is the only true fiduciary approach. It is the only way, with integrity, to serve our clients fully, completely, and most impactfully.

If we are committed to the vision, we must commit to the people and the process that supports the vision. Organizationally, we must ask the hard questions with our core teams and invest the necessary time and money into devising better processes and bringing the right people onto our team to guide and administer those processes. Someone needs to lead. Others will follow. 

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Without vision, most professionals continue down somewhat aimless paths doing what we know and what we’ve been taught, and innovation will continue to elude us.
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Working with a growth coach, consultant, or project manager with some related experience in our world, can be incredibly beneficial. A system cannot be understood from within the system, some wise sage once said. It is very true, as any of us with any experience can attest.

To bring the vision to life, you must be willing to identify who you want on your estate planning team, and perhaps who is best suited to be the loosely dubbed leader or facilitator (let’s be sensitive to those egos as we do so!). As you continue to develop your ‘go to’ group, belief will deepen within the team, or it may not. By necessity, you will be required to ask some folks to step aside, as some others will drop away of their own accord, in both cases these will be people who just can’t get there or can’t make time for this potentially better way. Be sure not to make excuses for folks or let your personal preferences get in the way. 

This team could literally change everything about the way we work and it could change everything about the potential impact we can have in our clients’ lives. It is too important an opportunity to compromise our values, and put what’s possible at risk. Consider creating a profile for each role on the team, and evaluate potential team members carefully, using some type of personality assessment tool, such as Myers Briggs, Culture Index, Kolbe Index, or the like.

Take your time developing your vision and your process, while reflecting on the professionals you want on your collaborative estate planning team, along with the additional people you’ll eventually want to invite into your core team to make this vision a reality. Cast your vision in advance of team formation to keep it at the forefront during the formative stages, and to instill greater confidence in those who join you, that the vision can in fact become a reality.

Rome wasn’t built in a day. Be patient with yourself. But do seriously consider building your own estate planning professional team. Don’t wait. Take your first step. As soon as you can, identify and talk with someone you have in mind as a key member of the team. See if together you can get the dream moving. Your clients and your future self will be eternally grateful!