Alright, we got our man Griffin here who is a recovering attorney, which is always fun to say because you all are a bunch of alcoholics. All a bunch of crazy people. Today’s a very important conversation, not only for me, obviously for you, but I literally believe everyone in the United States specifically, let alone globally should have some sort of a state or legacy plan. However, you want to word it. A lot of people who know me, I’ve been through a lot with it, both personally and professionally. And I know you probably have millions of stories as well, but today we want to hit a, on a little bit of that, and get that conversation moving forward. So without further ado, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself, why you’re recovering and then also why you’re doing what you’re doing today.

Griffin Bridgers:
0:57

Okay my name’s Griffin Bridgers and like story said, recovering estate planning attorney and I’ll explain a little bit more about what that means. But for a long time, I spent 14 years in active practice still do a little bit part time. But most of the time, really what an average estate planning lawyers. Focus is on to revenue generating activities. One is the drafting and execution of a state planning documents, and the other is on the back end. If something happens to one of your clients or somebody else, and they have the need for assistance with administering their estate or administering a trust, stepping in to be able to interpret what the document says and make sure that the fiduciary, whether it be an executor or trustee has the right guidance to execute. Get assets into the right hands and pay creditors and Uncle Sam. So for a long time, those were the two legs of the stool. And a stool really needs to have a third leg. And my struggle was that there was no. Economic incentive in the practice of law to have that third leg. So with that type of setup, there was a lot of, inefficiency to start with. And also the incentives didn’t align. It forced you to have very transactional relationships as an attorney. It was very rare that you’d get repeat business. And I always challenge people that to look Daytime or nighttime TV and look for the legal zoom commercials. For a long time. People said legal zoom is going to replace attorneys It’s you know, they have an easier way to do it. You can just go online and get it done No questions asked and the problem is There’s a statistic that tends to float between 65 to 70 percent of Americans not having a will, but if you look back two or three or four decades, that statistic has not changed at all, which tells us that the access, lower cost. Ease of doing this through the internet and fees being lowered through providers like legal zoom hasn’t moved the needle. And if you look at the average legal zoom commercial, not to point them out or give them free advertising only because they’re the most visible and one of the first disruptors in the space, but you’ll notice they only really advertise corporate and trademark services. Because they’ve realized that selling wills and trust directly to the consumer is not a scalable model. You don’t exactly get people in the door. And I think there’s a lot of misinformation and confusion between the tech world, the wealth management world, and the attorney world in terms of how the psychology And emotional aspects of a state planning fit into what has traditionally been a highly transactional environment when really it should be a highly relationship driven environment and part of what motivated me to step out of that role is to find better ways to make the incentives align so that a state planning can become something that one excites people so that you can view it through the positive lens. It’s no longer something you have to do. But something you get to do and also to view it as a process and not necessarily a set it and forget it. Pass fail thing of do you have a will? Yes. No. Do you have a revocable trust? So the comprehensive guidance needed to create a comprehensive estate plan covers a lot more bases than just the traditional document driven type of approach that a lot of attorneys and even. A lot of tech providers, I have focused on because there’s a lot of innovators out there in the space saying, okay, yeah, we want to make it easier to get a will, or we want to increase that percent of Americans who have a will, but perhaps you’re solving for the wrong problem. It’s if you go to a personal trainer and they say, okay, the only metric of success is that you have to go run a marathon. Anything short of that you fail at. And nobody’s going to be there to cheer you on until you die. In that case, how many people are going to actually do that then? And the way that’s how estate planning is set up right now. And nobody’s really stopped to ask why in the average mind of the consumer, do they view getting a will Or an estate plan is a marathon level, monumental task that is hard to tackle. And if that’s the case, instead of trying to solve for that and get more people to run a marathon, can we not make incremental steps in the process that create a more meaningful outcome? And create momentum for people to participate in estate planning itself.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
5:55

It all comes down to this journey of life, right? It is a journey estate planning, financial planning which are very intertwined. They’re a lifelong journey. This isn’t something you can set and forget. Our industry loves these giant, like the one they used to, those giant Portfolios. And they would create a giant financial plan that answered everything and throw it at you and you’re good to go. And then two weeks later, something changes and the whole plan’s gone is state planning to me and financial planning one need to run hand in hand, but I have that same philosophy of this thing is a lifelong thing. Let’s bite a little bit at a time and create this bigger thing, this complexity it isn’t something you can just hire one of us and get it done. Not to mention the most important thing you had said in that. The whole conversation was it’s relationship based. It is not transactional. And that’s usually the issue. Now we’re seeing a lot more on the wealth management side of people don’t care about investments. They don’t care really about the hard set plan. They want someone there for when things go good or bad, that they have their back and they can tell them, Hey, you’re good to go. This is what we’re doing, but we’re good to go. And that’s really what they want to see from the estate planning side too. Yep. So agreed. Agreed. So let’s we’ve discussed that we, obviously it’s not a money issue but it is more of a relationship mindset issue. What is your solution to that? How do you solve in your opinion this issue?

Griffin Bridgers:
7:27

I think it’s redefining the term estate planning because traditionally that term has been equated from a marketing and transactional perspective with the question of whether or not you have a will or trust. Again, it’s that pass fail type of analysis, ignoring that there’s a lot that leads up to it. So really what we as a profession, you’re really aligned need is to agree on A process that creates meaningful progress towards that goal, which may fall about two thirds through the process of getting a will or trust. Because as anybody who’s operated in this space knows, just getting the documents and signing them is only part of the battle. There’s a lot that leads up to that. And there’s a lot that follows that too, in terms of funding the estate plan. So really the bigger question right now is what leads up to that. Yeah, you may not be able to get more than 65 or 70 percent of Americans to not have a will anymore and meaningfully bring down that that metric. But there’s a lot of other things that go into estate planning. For instance I always like to tackle the scare tactic marketing. The common trope is that if you don’t have a will, the state creates one for you. There’s a set of what’s called intestacy laws in every state that dictates a preset depending on your family situation and blend who gets what in what dollar amount or what percent. And it usually looks at are you married, do you have any kids, are the kids of your current marriage, or are they stepkids to your new spouse, and are they minors or not. There’s all these little permutations and we don’t need to get into those because they vary state to state. But I think especially for financial planners, they’re in the privileged position to know the information that the attorney is not going to know. And one of those items of information that a lot of people are surprised to find out is that it may be that you have several wills in place already. So what do I mean by that? Traditionally, a will or a revocable trust is designed to be a backstop. It catches all of your assets and makes sure they go either specifically or in percent as a whole to whoever you name. But, when we look at things on an asset by asset basis, there can be asset specific wills that come into play. For example, If you have a residence, maybe you’re married, you might co own that with your spouse. And depending on the form of title, a lot of times the default is that you own it as what’s called joint tenants with right of survivorship. And that’s a fancy way of saying that if you’re a married couple and you co own a residence and something happens to one of you, The other becomes the 100 percent owner automatically by operation of law. No questions asked. That overrides the term of a, an estate plan that you create. So titling supersedes what you put into your actual documents and also all almost becomes a will in and of itself. There might also be other assets out there like life insurance and retirement accounts, annuities, other tax deferred types of accounts where a beneficiary attaches to it. If you name an individual as a beneficiary on one of those accounts, then that asset is going to automatically go to that individual or even a group of individuals you name as primary or contingent beneficiaries. Again, that becomes its own Asset specific will, and again, it overrides the terms of any estate planning documents you might put into place unless somehow your estate becomes the beneficiary or a revocable trust does, which is usually a, an outcome that has to be intentional and that you don’t necessarily fall into by accident in 100 percent of cases. And I’ve even seen increasingly on The taxable account side that if you have a cash account or an investment account or something like that again, you have that joint tenancy override. We talked about with residences if you’re married, but even if you’re not married, I’ve seen a number of custodians out there not to pick on them, but they are incentivized. To say, okay, if you’re calling into Fidelity or Schwab, the, they want you to attach a beneficiary to your account. Why so that they don’t have to deal with the probate process. There’s a set of laws out there that makes it easier for a bank or financial institution to deal with an account if they can just send it to a new recipient and not have to deal with executors or other people like that. So on the financial side, Okay. A lot of custodians are really pushing the idea of adding a beneficiary. Guess what? When you do that becomes a new asset specific will, and that is a state planning in and of itself. And a lot of custodians are often pushing that. Guess what? Without guidance of an attorney. I sometimes throw up on the LinkedIn that I have some fidelity accounts, not to pick on them, but it’s only because I got the specific email from them a couple of years ago, like prompting me to add a beneficiary to my taxable accounts. And I was like What’s the context of that? How many people have gotten that email and then said, Oh yeah, I need to add my wife or my kids or something like that. Not knowing if they’ve gone through the estate planning process by doing that, they’ve now overridden their documents. So with that being said, it’s all these little assets, specific wills that come into play. And you need somebody who can view those comprehensively and tie them all together. That is something that usually comes on the back end of creating a state planning documents when we look at funding, but it’s also something I need, I think needs to come on the front end too, so that you can keep all the pieces in line and know what has to happen before you even go into the approach of getting documents in place and knowing what has to happen on the back end. That’s just kind of one small example in. broader scope of estate planning that we need to rethink in terms of looking at it on an asset by asset basis instead of just taking this traditional backstop approach.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
13:32

Absolutely. And the changing from estate planning and I say legacy planning because that’s truly what it is. At black mammoth, our modern family office, we take into account all of those assets and the plan itself also takes into plan. What that legacy is going to be after. And a lot of financial planners and advisors only care about the person during their living times and usually all the way up until retirement. And then it gets a little wishy washy of who’s helping, distribute income. And that’s where I see it from our side. The bigger issue is because it’s going and all we’re caring about up until retirement. And then it’s by the wayside where this legacy planning comes into play after their death. What they want to achieve what they want to leave it And if you’re doing all your planning correctly on the front side While you’re living while you’re healthy while you’re young and setting everything up over time Then it’s a way easier transition for not only when you retire and how you distribute your income But two for the legacy planning side and no those conversations are easy No, they’re and yes, they’re complex, but it’s over the course of time and it’s dependent on You Who you are and what you want to accomplish. Not, Hey, I just need to get this done to protect, what are we all saying our assets in something you brought up that had come up a few years ago here in the state of Iowa was that advisors really just insurance people were pushing beneficiary designations as well, right? Getting all the beneficiaries set up, et cetera. Someone didn’t change the document correctly towards someone’s estate plan. As they were told to do so and that person had passed and they got sued for it. And that’s where all of a sudden our industry here locally, everyone got afraid of doing beneficiaries and all of that. And for me, I went the other way and I knocked down and said, we need to understand why this happened, what happened and understand what the cause and effect could be, which led me into estate planning, which is where I got my minor in law. For that specific reason. And so that’s where I want our industry to recognize. It is our duty to understand. It is our duty to help because we’re the ones in there every day dealing with their financial plan, which equates to their legacy plan every day as well. You need to get educated. You need to work with Griffin. You need to do all of these things because that is the benefit of having. A financial planner for a client

Griffin Bridgers:
16:05

agreed. And I like that you brought up legacy planning because money has meaning. And I think part of the the psychological emotional element of this too, is that a lot of people have fear about approaching this because there’s this belief that you have to get it perfect. At first glance, and a lot of people are going to put it off because there’s practically no way to get it perfect. And every time you change your mind, you’re then going to have to pay an attorney to update everything. So I can’t credit myself with this approach. It came from another financial advisor. I work with, but they tend to distinguish between the die tomorrow plan. Versus the die old plan and legacy planning really fits into that die old plan. But the die tomorrow plan is something where if you don’t have something in place right now, it helps to at least have the stopgap estate plan so that you at least have made your wishes known, at least in some form of enforceable legal document. But that being said. One of the issues I came across to as a practicing attorney is this idea of legacy planning, and there’s this positive psychology way you can approach it versus a negative psychology way you can approach it. And there’s been a big push amongst higher net worth families, and I have a feeling it’s going to trickle down this approach called wealth 3. 0 and the I guess the zeitgeist is that traditionally. Especially for family businesses, we’ve considered the shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves in 3 generations type of phenomenon or 2 generations, depending on how you look at it. And there’s a belief that somehow that is perpetuated itself to become a self fulfilling prophecy. And that if you’re approaching the estate planning process, I’m Assuming that failure is inevitable and planning to avoid that failure, then you’re pretty much going to create that failure anyway. So a lot of estate planners on the attorney side approach estate planning from the perspective of what can go wrong. But rarely do we approach it from the perspective of what can go right? Because you only hear about the failures. You don’t hear about the success stories and the failures tend to be at extreme ends of the bell curve. And oftentimes, you brought up an error in a beneficiary designation, but oftentimes those errors. Errors are really just pouring gasoline on a fire of an issue that was already there in terms of family dynamics that frankly no estate plan was really going to fix ultimately at the end of the day. So legacy planning sometimes requires a certain amount of looking in the mirror and saying, okay if you are an objective observer, looking at our family and the meaning I want to leave when I’m gone. How much of what I do during life is going to affect that as well. And, there’s every client, has the need for an advisor, but sometimes there’s some things that, you know, in terms of how kids are raised and other things and family conflicts that are really going to. Follow you across multiple generations, and those are problems that can’t always be solved. And there’s a belief that possibly money and inheritance can solve them, but it may not. And part of what got me into doing what I do now is that I was privileged enough in my twenties to receive a modest, gift in it as it. An advance of inheritance which I later came to know in tax parlance is known as an annual exclusion gift for gift tax purposes. But it was something where it came from an older generation. And for the first time in my life, my parents didn’t control the purse strings on. That wealth and I got to self teach myself what it meant to manage, invest, report for tax purposes, all that good stuff. And those are lessons that I wouldn’t have learned using most modern approaches to estate planning that avoid. Ownership of wealth and encouraged trust ownership of wealth for the next generation. And we’re on the cusp of the wealth wave. And there’s a lot of tech money and private equity money going into that idea that, billions of not trillions of wealth is going to change to the hands of gen X, Y, Z, and alpha in the next couple of decades. But what few people realize. Because from my side, attorneys have spent their time setting up estate plans that are going to put that wealth into trusts, usually for the lifetime of the next generation and possibly for multiple generations. And everybody is used to dealing in a world of individual ownership of wealth. Few people have considered the effect of interacting with trusts and what those mean and how that affects investments and the way you manage wealth and the way you receive wealth and even the psychological effects of receiving that wealth in a trust thinking, Oh, mom and dad didn’t trust me to get individual ownership of wealth. And that’s what I’ve dreamed of. For years. What got me out of the practice of law full time was the idea that, yeah I pretty much always had to represent one generation of a family. And I couldn’t take that holistic view to be able to say, Hey, These are common goals that seem like a good idea to you, but have they really been bought into by the next generation? Do they care if you save estate taxes? Do they care if they’re protected from creditors? Or is it going to mean a lot more to them if they can have the money with the risk that comes along with it? And we’re missing a lot of opportunities, I think, in the coming years to create growth by that wealth and the management of it and the opportunities that come with it as well.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
21:51

You bring up the best point, the most important point. No one talks about that. And I also believe most of it’s going to be put into some sort of trusts. And there’s going to be a huge generation that goes, I want access. It’s my money. And it’s not, it is it right. Depending on the situation. And that is an issue because as a planner or an advisor, Or even now being an attorney, who did they appoint and who was in there as trustee that is in control of this and how complex did this trust go? Do they know what’s in the best interest for the beneficiaries for this money or for whatever’s going on? And that doesn’t even touch in. It’s all about emotions, right? That doesn’t even come close to understanding the beneficiaries, emotions, what’s going on in their life and everything. It is truly for me more of a transaction into which I hate in our space is AUM. Everything’s about investments. That is what is going to happen. And it’s going to cause an uproar. And with that, I’m going to ask this question. If they’re in that situation that happens, beneficiary is not happy, doesn’t even know who the trustee is. It could be XYZ person who knows in general, because we can’t get into details. We don’t know the plan. What can they do about that as a beneficiary if they don’t like or understand what’s going on with that trustee and they believe they’re not doing the job that’s best for

Griffin Bridgers:
23:16

them? I’m going to caveat with nothing that I say is intended to substitute for tax or legal advice. So I’ll get, I’ll give it the top of the bell curve. Some of the things that probably won’t be universally applicable. What are things you can think about? And it’s funny you mentioned the my money and I need it now. I always think of those JG Wentworth commercials about structured settlements and annuities and think there’s going to be a cottage industry of trust busters in the future, not in the Teddy Roosevelt sense, but more in the sense of, Hey, can we take a private trust and get it into individual ownership of the wealth? But For a lot of modern trusts that have at least been drafted in the last 20, 25 years, what I’ve seen is that usually a beneficiary has the power at least to remove and replace the trustee. And in the effort to get people to actually get documents done, we, going back to what I discussed earlier it’s rare that people want to think about death. And in the rare moments where you can capture their attention long enough, attorneys often try to ram as much as they can through the process to get as much done as you can while you have the client’s attention. And usually what that means is they have to rush the process, which is important and not given enough of importance of who the trustee of trust is going to ultimately be. So usually there’s some combination of maybe we pick a magic age, like 35 or maybe. The beneficiary of the trust can become trustee or a co trustee. So one thing, one solution is if that’s the case for a client who has their own trust set up that way, sometimes it’s a matter of waiting it out. Sometimes you can say, okay I’ll. Deal with this trustee who I don’t want to have a relationship with knowing that I can defer some gratification and tell a point where I can take things over and then manage this wealth myself. And if it’s a situation where the trustee is just simply doing a bad job or you don’t like them, sometimes the beneficiary can remove and replace that trustee. Usually there’ll be some bounds around that. They may have to pick a new bank or corporate trustee which is really somebody for hire. And not necessarily a friend or family member who’s going to do it. And on that point, the beneficiary is not going to be able to name their friend who’s a roommate in college or a dorm mate or something like that, who’s going to be sympathetic to their needs. They’re usually going to have to find somebody who’s Independent or not related or isn’t going to cave to their whims. Similarly, they may not be able to name a spouse or a romantic partner or something like that. And that’s pretty disastrous if you think about what the effect of that is down downstream. I think in the future you bring up a really good point is that for an advisor to add value, you’re really going to have to be able to navigate first and foremost what a beneficiary’s rights might be. Under a trust, what are their distribution rights? And what are their rights to control and fire and replace that person who holds the purse strings the trustee? And there’s going to be no universal solution. It’s really going to be a case by case basis. And much we talked about legal or tax advice. Some may take a hands off approach and say, Hey, we can’t review this trust. You’ve got to go to an attorney. Some may yeah. Practice law when they shouldn’t be doing it and dive in. But yeah, here’s exactly what your trust says. X, Y and Z. You can follow this course of action and then some will take a more comprehensive approach of saying, okay, here’s what the trust says. You may have these options, but to do implement these courses of action, you’re going to have to go to an attorney and get this done. And the question then becomes who pays. Is that an expense you can charge to the trust or is it something where the beneficiary is out of pocket and maybe they can seek reimbursement from the trust after the fact. So lots of things like that coming down the pike.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
27:09

And I, I believe the family office perspective is coming into more play with that because I don’t actually, I know a lot of attorneys who are trustees and I think it’s just on paper. Really don’t know how to manage a family, right? They don’t know how to manage wealth. They’ll go hire an investment advisor or something and feel like that’s it. And again, we’ve, we talked about that. That means we’re missing the emotional piece. That means we’re missing the planning piece. And with these trusts that I believe in, and we’ve set up a couple on the legacy side that are set up for a couple generations, you have to actually do financial planning. There is a lot more that goes into it, not just set it and forget it assets, kick off some income to them. There is a really good conversation and relationship that needs to be had between that trustee or the trustee’s team and that family member or the beneficiary, which is where I believe we in my industry need to step up more, we cannot be afraid of compliance or our custodial responsibilities. We need to be able to take that on. And that’s what I do, right? I’m a trustee for a couple of plants. Yes. Do I have to have surprise audits and more costs for compliance? Of course. But in my eyes, I’m doing what is best for the family for those generations because I’m in there knee deep with them. I’m watching their children grow. I’m understanding what’s going on in their life. And if you just hire a third party that has to come in, they’re not going to know those things. And then it’s going to turn into turmoil. Then you’re going to have beneficiaries fighting. Then you’re going to have, lawsuits. Then you’re going to have people saying, Hey, is the trustee really doing their fiduciary responsibility? And it just gets messy. So I really see that happening. And I, and whoever’s listening from our perspective in our industry, question me on that. I would love to have a conversation and I believe and I know in my heart that’s where we need to move to. One other question I had for you was Trustees get paid, don’t they? They do.

Griffin Bridgers:
29:04

They’re entitled to reasonable compensation, quote unquote, in each state. What that means is very loose. There’s no black and white guideline and really it ends up as a bell curve comparison to what other trustees are doing and exactly how much the trustee themselves is doing. So for in your example, if you’re a trustee who farms out and delegates most of the heavy lifting like investment management or preparing taxes or accounting or whatever, and really, you’re just that general contractor figurehead. How much can you actually command in fees? And if you end up double dipping, I see a lot of conflicts coming down the pike on that point as well. So whether you charge by the hour or a percent of AUM or assets administered which will be really hairy when we look at Illiquid assets like business interests or something within a trust. And even some states, or I know California on the probate side, they’ll let attorneys and executors charge a percent of the total value of the estate with somebody who’s a public official designed appraise and determine what that net worth number might be. It’s really going to depend on the state. And I could see a lot of forum shopping too, between states who have more, Favorable trust laws that it may not simply be a change of trustee. It may be that, Hey, there’s a trustee in South Dakota or Delaware, who’s going to be a lot more hands off and sympathetic to our needs, or who simply is going to charge less. So we’re going to go there and use them as opposed to sticking with this family member or somebody else. And in that vein, you brought up a good point too, especially on the AUM model is that. There’s a, and I’m going to really anger some advisors here, especially of the older generation, but there is this push for sticky wealth. Frankly, I think that’s a farce because sticky wealth is designed solely to drive a multiple metric to. Create an exit from your AUM based practice at some point. And I know I don’t know everything and there’s probably people who are going to push back on that, but I challenged the idea of sticky wealth because nobody has really stepped back and thought if you’re an older advisor. Or even an older attorney, are you really going to want to work with the next generation if your client was the older generation and especially are you going to want to work with them if the cheap way you built rapport was by demonizing the next generation of saying, Oh yeah, we can make sure your kids don’t become trust fund babies and yeah, they didn’t work hard in college or as teenagers. So yeah, we’re going to protect them now and oftentimes that image of kids. Is frozen at a time when they are kids and that image is no longer accurate when they’re in their 40s and 50s. But if you have an advisor or trustee still serving them with that, it absorbed. Image of the new client from when they were younger and had issues that they have since overcome. How much of that is going to bleed over into the administration of that wealth? And I think we can draw a parallel. There’s a lot of dynamics you have to look at within a family between. Older generation and newer generation wealth creators versus wealth inheritors But the same dynamic trickles down to advisory firms and even law firms that you have to mirror that What is the dynamic between older generation and newer generation? Because to have sticky wealth You have to have sticky employees and right now is probably the hardest time in history to have sticky employees and it’s going to get worse once the wealth wave occurs because it’s going to be a lot more of a market where it’s going to be like shooting fish in a barrel for somebody who’s younger and coming up to add value in a way that nobody else has before.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
32:50

And let’s be real, those older generations cared about the one person that they usually worked with and usually is the male, right? Now statistics show it’s closer 50 50, but let’s be real. It was mostly them talking about to the male. They were either golfing buddies, going out drinking, having dinners, et cetera. They’ve never built rapport with the spouse. They’ve never built rapport with the family. They don’t even know who they are emotionally or relationship based. Yep. And that’s what you’re talking about is that is going to be. a huge issue for them if they don’t have a younger person on or haven’t started to build those relationships and truly get to know who they are. And those younger generational people, those beneficiaries are going to go work with the people they know, right? And the ones that care. And ultimately it’s going to come down to, can they talk, can I talk to them? Do I like to have fun with them? Very much the same as it’s always been, right? If I have a relationship with you, there’s nothing wrong with that. Just I’ve seen the older generation in my industry, not care as much about the kids, about what they want about their lives. And I believe this newer generation of planners, we are focused on top to bottom, like grandpa, grandma, all the way down because it’s a family thing. It’s not just I care about this one person, which is where sticky wealth comes into play, which is where financial planning more comes into play. Then I’m just taking care of your assets. I asked that question about the fees because you see a lot of these estate plans when they get pushed through. Guess who the executive trustee is some family member, right? And I know and I’ve seen it a lot. Families love to fight and they love to argue. And guess what? It’s going to be when Mom and dad appointed X, Y, Z person. And they also, by the way, get paid to do the job. And now you have this whole thing. You’re getting paid to distribute our wealth. It’s not fair. It should be part of your wealth. There’s so much argument that goes into it. So I’m a firm believer that there should be a third party who is executive or a trustee, a team of people that don’t matter, but it should not ever be family members. What’s your take on

Griffin Bridgers:
35:00

that? Yeah. And I think the weight of a state planning is looked at. Do you even need an executor beat to begin with? If you can focus everything on a revocable trust and smooth the administration of the estate, that’s usually going to be a better outcome. Now I’m. My theme is balance, and for a long time, there’s been a lot of marketing that’s pushed revocable trust and probate avoidance, and that marketing has ignored the fact that probate can actually be good. It helps to settle debts. It helps to finalize taxes and everything else and to make sure that whoever receives wealth receives it free and clear of any people who could come beating down their door in the future to pay a debt that was unaddressed and wasn’t settled in the probate process itself. On that note, when it comes to compensation, I think it helps to know when you are choosing a family member friend, compensation is optional. You don’t have to take it in most states. And if you’re already inheriting from the estate. You’re receiving it free of income tax in most cases, but if you take compensation, now you’re converting some of that and turning it into taxable income for yourself. Now, that being said, having been on the other side and dealing with family disputes, we have weaponized The power to take compensation before to say, okay, if you’re not going to play ball, guess what brother who’s getting pushed back from everybody else is going to claim compensation is going to lower your total share and is going to make sure that has priority because. The priority of settling out claims against the estate or a trust tends to prioritize compensation to that executor or trustee. So there’s lots of gamesmanship that can happen there. And like I said, I think that’s, it’s always going to relate back to the family dynamics. Like you said, how did the generations get along? And I think. I think it’s a painful area that a lot of people don’t want to tread into. But as an advisor, you almost have an obligation, I’d say now to get to know the family and kind of know what the overall landscape might be. And I know when, what I say, it may seem like I have an ax to grind against the older generation, and that’s not always my my my intent. But what I’m trying to do is create a balanced voice because for the longest time, the voices have been, Either representing the older generation or trying to take a holistic approach to represent everybody, which is a very difficult task. But I think the younger generation who’s going to receive the wealth needs a voice and needs to have a say in how that wealth is received. And right now, that is not the case in most situations that happens. In fact, it’s usually viewed the opposite that, hey, it’s a privilege that they receive wealth to begin with. So frankly, they shouldn’t have a voice in what that looks like down the road.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
37:52

Do you see there being an issue or a case against an advisor or planner who really was focused on that older generation? And when these things come to light that the beneficiaries being raised and knowing what’s going on can come back at them for either steering their parents in the wrong way, or knowing the somewhat from the parents and they’ve alluded to them doing something else. Do you see where some of that liability and responsibility falls? There

Griffin Bridgers:
38:21

could be. And I don’t, I can’t speak as much to the advisor world as I can to the attorney world. And you brought up that case in Iowa earlier about the botched beneficiary designation. We had a similar case here in Colorado where I’m at probably about five or six years ago where a law firm got sued for malpractice by the beneficiaries. In a blended marriage scenario because what the law firm failed to advise on is the fact that some property was titled in joint tenancy And went to step mom and didn’t go to the kids and they got disinherited And what the court held here in colorado, which is the broad case for most states Is that the attorney and maybe the advisor? Owes no duties to the next generation who’s receiving wealth. They only owe duties to the older generation who they’re representing, and they don’t have a duty to second guess or question what that older generation’s motives or intent might be. B. Even in California, they’re a little more favorable to that balanced view of having duties to multiple generations. But even then, there are bounds where they say, okay, it’s not your job to effectively take on a representation of everybody because it’s virtually impossible to represent all of those competing interests. I think if you’re an advisor, you’re still somewhat protected there that you’re not forced to take on more than is reasonable in terms of who you advise and what the trickle down effects might be. But to your point, being right is different from Is a beneficiary going to actually sue you and you have to go through the process of paying an attorney to prove that you’re right at the end of the day. So with that being said that’s where family dynamics come back into play where selecting clients wisely in seeing these conflicts come down the pike and saying, Hey, short term profit may not be. A benefit when I can see problem kids down the road coming back to sue me you may have to step back in those types of scenarios. And that’s really a discernment issue that, none of us can give you the right bounds around. It’s really just following your gut and knowing. But for now A lot of advisors just don’t have that direct liability to the next generation, unless the next generation formally signs on as a client.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
40:51

All right. As we wrap this up, I have one last question I want. I’m sure a lot of people are asking, I get asked this all the time or. I should see, I see this commented all the time. And that being, I don’t really have any money. I don’t really have anything. Should I really get a will or a trust? Should I really have a legacy plan if I only have 5, 000 to my name? What do you say to those types of questions and

Griffin Bridgers:
41:16

comments? This is where we get back into that whole issue of things being so document based and document driven, and I’m going to go a little bit against the mold here to say that when we talk about that die tomorrow versus die old plan that you may never even outgrow the die tomorrow plan, but without even doing documents, there are ways that you Looking at an asset by asset type of outcome to create an estate plan without ever executing a will or a trust. You can get assets into the right hands of the next generation or even charitable recipients by using beneficiary designations, joint titling, and other methods. So it may be that For somebody in that situation, they could at least as a starter plan, have that document agnostic type of outcome. And the problem is that when the economic incentives of estate planning are tied to the creation of documents, nobody’s going to tell them that. So the big question is who can have that economic incentive to get them there without getting sued on the back end of things indeed go wrong. And I think really my push is that the world of attorneys and advisors can be more holistic in the advice that they can give and the incentives that attach to that somebody in that situation would Could pay somebody to meet them where they are and say, okay, here’s how we can get here as a temporary step. Here’s the road map of where your estate plan could go at different phases of your life. If you want to get to this next step, this might involve documents. But for now, we can just do this simple approach that is going to get you at least 90 percent of the way there to minimize headaches. And a lot of states have And we talked about probate kind of probate exceptions, where, if your net worth after taking into account all those little other outside the estate plan transfers, if your net worth is under a certain amount, it may be as simple as doing an affidavit or sending assets directly to somebody else sometimes. You can only do that if you don’t have a will which is another issue. But really it’s just a knowledge of if you’re an advisor in a certain state, knowing what the landscape is. And obviously your official party line has to be, this is not intended to be legal or tax advice, but there’s a difference between knowing the law and saying, Hey, here’s generally what the law says versus this is what the law says. Here’s where you’re at and here’s what you need to do. And that’s a fine line. You have to tow, but I think to have better outcomes, we’re going to have more people tow that line instead of washing their hands and saying, Hey, you need to go to somebody else. I’m not willing to take on that liability.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
44:00

You nailed it. Let’s keep it simple, right? Let’s go ahead and use our asset beneficiaries to help us do it right now. Let’s take the next step and get documents and at least put it in just in case situation. And give us time to develop this legacy plan over time. Do those three things. You can do them relatively cheap. Come talk to us. We’re ready and available for it. Griffin, or just start it on your own, but I appreciate your time. This is going to be a great episode. I already know it. We’re going to get you back in. Cause I know there’s going to be a bunch of questions. And everyone loves talking to attorneys. I definitely appreciate it. I look forward

Griffin Bridgers:
44:33

to the next time. Sounds good. Thank you, Stoy. Thank you everybody.

Black Mammoth:
44:50

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