0:00 welcome to trust and Estates weekly I'm your host Kevin bemel and we are here every Monday at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time going over to the east coast that's it's already 1 pm there so you're you're more than halfway through your day lucky you only four more hours until cocktail time um and we cover um both Estate Planning and estate Administration from the standpoint of our own situations but also like we will today from the standpoint of professionals who advise people help them plan create and
0:36 administrate their Estates and so to this morning well this morning here on the West Coast anyway I'm very pleased to have as my guest Cedric Collins Cedric's kind of a new friend of mine I think we've known each other maybe for about a year now uh and and Cedric is an estate planning attorney he's based in Century City which for those of you outside of the Southern California area that may not mean a whole lot but uh Century City is is is one of the sort of top locations for professional Talent um right outside of Beverly Hills um and uh
1:12 has has one of the truly great shopping malls as well um and so um you know without further Ado um Cedric thanks so much for coming on the show Welcome to trust and Estates weekly thank you so much for having me Kevin it's a pleasure to be here with you so I I I thought we'd start out for just just to kind of the hitting the highlights of of your background so people can uh get to know you a little bit and and and understand uh you know who you are um you know as as a lawyer okay well well thank you for that um yeah so I'm a trust in the state's
1:48 attorney based here in Southern California but however this is a second career for me I spent a number of years working in higher education right here in Southern California in fact my first job as a lawyer was working for a small University right here in the San Fernando Valley uh one thing led to another and around 2019 I started my practice here after learning about you know just the troubles in with estate planning there are several entertainers that have passed away many of them I you know I kind of touch make reference on in terms of uh their situations and some
2:23 of the my literature and I was just taking a back how there's such a need for this planning and that there not more professionals out there to serve this very important uh planning process yeah you know there's I think one of my friends told me there's going to be an8 trillion doll transfer of wealth here in California over the next maybe decade or so um and and there's not anything close to enough um professionals to help people with that so uh so yeah I think you you really identified a uh you know a crucial uh
3:00 you know area in which to practice um so tell us um you know a little bit kind of on a day-to-day basis how are you um helping your clients what what kind of activities are you in involved with them well we believe here at Legacy one Law Firm that your legacy is more than just a stack of documents there's two general approaches that we see in the marketplace we see the the more transactional approach where it's it's seeking to kind of commodify just Drafting and preparing documents and then there's the approach where we use
3:36 the relationship model but we want to take the time to get to know you what's important to you your values uh things that you know that sit close to your heart uh when it comes to this type of Legacy planning because we believe that every family has its own set of unique family Dynamics and so we want to point out what those are so we can customize a plan that's going to fit your needs and it's going to work how it's int ended to work right and and that's that's really the the key right is is people have a maybe a vision but but then being able to fulfill that Vision especially once
4:12 they're gone can be not an easy thing so you've written a book and and if if um if you don't mind I I think you've got a copy there holding it up so people can see what the cover looks like um and it's called um um oh boy I I you know it's it's backwards on me so let me let me uh let me get the name here I don't know why my thing is coming so it's called prudent planning for family Legacy uh the truth behind Wills trusts and Estates so um what what led you to to write this book
4:49 Because as someone who has written a book myself um it it's it's it's a lot of work right and and uh it's time away from you know family business Etc so what what what led to what led you to to want to write your book well I can certainly agree with you about the time and energy and effort this was about a year uh worth of work but I I consider it a labor of love because part of my mission here when I started Legacy one Law Firm was to educate and empower the community because part of the reason why folks don't uh move forward with this type of planning are the tabos right who
5:25 wants to talk about death who wants to talk about what happens when something happens to them the unknown right and that raises so much anxiety so I wanted to create something that was very easy to read something that a fifth grader could read something that's under 150 Pages the book is designed that is easy to flow and follow pointing out some of the major pitfalls that we see day-to-day with families that or individuals or business owners that undergo or are attempt to undertake uh estate and Legacy planning and so what led me to this was look there's
6:00 I think is 60% of Americans if I'm not mistaken do not have any even a basic will in place and so I wanted to kind of demystify pull back to curtain if you will as well as point out some of the major pitfalls that I see from a failure to put a plan in place for those you love and does this book Focus just here in California or or is it something that you know someone in I don't know Nebraska could could you know could use so great question Kevin we're based here in southern uh Southern California we serve Californians throughout the state
6:35 however we drafted or I WR this book should I say wrote this book to be generally applicable now this is not legal advice for even those who live here in California but the ter the General Estate Planning principles are applicable uh throughout the nation but we always advise once reading this or any type of legal uh literature seek the advice of your own individ independent legal counsel but yes the terms are generally applicable throughout the United States okay great great and um so tell tell us you know two or three if of the
7:12 most important Concepts that you develop in the book so we can understand uh how it approaches this like you said kind of difficult uh you know question of of estate planning this uncomfortable you know question well the first of all the first thing we try to do is identify what makes up or comprises a comprehensive estate plan it's an estate plan is typically not just simply a will or simply you know a trust but there are a number of documents that support a comprehensive estate plan A lot of times when we do
7:48 reviews we see that someone only has a will or only has a trust that doesn't speak to other things such as how do you plan for your incapacity what if you don't die what if you survive the encounter so we talk about one of the things is what makes up a comprehensive estate plan the basics we also talk about some of the common pitfalls things that folks encounter when they try to do it themselves right the DIY approach do it yourself we spent a lot of time talking about the common pitfalls with that missteps such as failing to fund the trust we see that all far too often and then finally we kind of wrap up the book with your team who you the team
8:25 that you should put around you be it your uh your your trust States Attorney your tax professional your financial adviser that's kind of your dream team if you will if of course real estate professionals involved in that as well we kind of highlight who the key professionals you should seek to surround yourself with to avoid those common pitfalls that we see far too often okay so taking the first one um you mentioned the other the other documents or the other issues that need to be dealt with Beyond just a a will or a trust and you mentioned becoming incapacity itated so um what what does
9:02 that mean and and what are the issues around um you know somebody becoming incapacitated that that their uh estate plan uh should you know should help really them and and their loved ones deal with that's a great question Kevin um and sometimes we think uh as human nature that it it might not happen to us right and a lot of times we what we have we get the phone calls from the kids from the generation below we have our our elder population in the golden years
9:37 and then we have the that second kind of we call sometimes that sandwich generation that typically will call our office saying Hey My My mom has been diagnosed with this my dad's been diagnosed with this and T unfortunately a lot of times it's too late because they've already lost the capacity to plan for themselves when you talk about incapacity is uh and for incapacity it's appointing someone who you trust that will make critical either financial decisions for you or health rated decisions for you when you when you lack the ability to do so for yourself it can
10:13 sneak up on you it's a very slippery slope you can have a I've seen situations where there's someone who's been diagnosed with something within a month and then within the the next month they've completely lost the ability to um to make decisions for themselves and so some of the common things things we see it's like well who can make a mortgage payment for you who can uh you know continue to pay your basic household utilities who can apply for benefits if you need those um if you become incapacitated if you have minor children at home who will make decisions and take care of your kids should you become incapacitated so there are
10:48 plethora of issues that could arise and I think it was Benjamin Franklin that said an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure the for the cost of putting the state plan in place just the simple power of attorney or uh an advanced Healthcare directive can save your family thousands of dollars in legal fees once the emergency or the health in uh issue or incident has already occurred it's exponentially more expensive once something has already happened and and not to mention the emotional turmoil which you know it's impossible to put you know a cost on that so it it occurs to me listening to
11:25 um you talking about this issue um it would seem to be um especially crucial if if that's a you know a weird superlative for someone who's a single parent where you know if if they are incapacitated so wow so then now you know what what happens with their children so what what do you what do you think about that issue and and and how might that um play into it maybe differently than you know where you have a you know a married couple so you know both this the marriage is still intact and you know both people are still there
12:02 well well Kevin I can actually speak from personal experience you know my son will be nine years old and I'm actually a single dad so yes there are there is there're a little bit you're a little bit more exposed a little bit more vulnerable as to what would happen right and so sometimes when you have a spouse you do have a little bit of a covering there if you will someone there who you you share your life with to help you make those decisions but one of the things that I found though is that such as uh in situation such as advanced Healthcare directive that your spouse may not have all the rights that you think they may have there's HIPPA laws
12:37 out there right so just because you're married does not mean that you can necessarily see all of your significant others personal medical records and information so a lot of times when I'm counseling married couples they're surprised to learn that no your spouse cannot automatically see your X-rays and your blood work and your personal sensitive uh medical data right because these Hippa loss that exist federally right and throughout the country and so but being a single person though um that's not so much the issue as who's going to be able to make those decisions for you right who's going to be able to
13:13 be there by the hospital bed who's going to make that mortgage payment for you who's gonna like I said earlier take your kid to and from for the school right to and from the school those critical situations we're more vulnerable as single parents and single individuals than someone that may have a a spouse or significant other who has some legal Authority that makes some of those decisions although not all so so you brought up another issue here that in all the shows that I've done I don't recall this coming up um and and
13:48 maybe you'll expand on it um a little bit and that is the assumptions that people make about what they're able to do that it turns out they're not so you know as much as I've been doing this it it never really occurred to me that a spouse would be um prohibited by Hippa right from getting critical medical information about their spouse um you know when you say it of course it makes sense but so what are some of the other um assumptions that you find people making that you know you know in in the
14:23 words of Tony Randall when you assume you make a out of you and me right well when it comes to estate and Legacy planning they assume that everything would just maybe automatically go to a spouse or automatically go to children I wrote about that a little in my book how there is a there was a particular individual who was reluct at the plan after being urged by you know his significant other but failed the plan died uh kind of prematurely and this family was hit with a bunch of issues and his his school of thought his reasoning his his uh rationale was well
14:59 you'll just automatically get everything anyway and here in this country it just doesn't work that way to where nothing's automatic and although there is uh you know something called intestate secession that simply means dying without a will they're all default laws but that that going through the court system and the legal system for anyone who's been through it is anything but automatic and it could cost your family thousands sometimes in the six figures depending upon what have to to get that asset or those group of assets passed down to your family lineage be it a
15:36 spouse or uh to your children or other loved ones right right okay so um and what was the um second issue that you mentioned after um uh you know an estate plan is broader than a will and and and a trust well the DIY approach we call that to do-it-yourself approach and the reason why that's so big Kevin becoming so so much so huge is because we have technology we're in the information age we have artificial intelligence we have question prompts that we can put out there that can draft documents for us
16:12 and unfortunately we see this mistake happening with trust in the states as well or with online platforms that seek to kind of kind of minimize the uh the importance of nuanced planning for your individual situation and uh not to not to disparage any type of source but there's no cookie cutter approach to family Legacy planning we deal with Blended families families who have uh children who are disabled what about children who have uh spending problems and monetary issues drug and alcohol substance abuse right uh children who
16:48 are underage that may require uh special resources and provisioning a lot of these so-called online or virtual or digital platforms they don't take those resources in to uh account and so in most cases what you you kind of get what you pay for in many cases it's a template it's simply a template because that's what a software is right it's simply template to where you're filling in information I have a house I have a dog I have you know two or three kids and you know they they get everything right so it's it's really generic and cookie cutter and there are a lot of gaps there and the biggest thing the
17:23 biggest issue with DIY it's not embracing the technology it's you just simply don't know what you don't know so what we recommend is saving the DIY approach for your your remodeling your kitchen bathroom your kitchen or your bathroom at home right because like what's the worst thing that's going to happen Kevin when you go to if you mess up the remodel on your kitchen or your bathroom what's going to happen you're gonna eventually pay the piper and you're going to call in a contractor to fix it but when you go about drafting a will yourself or trust yourself and you leave out critical critical elements and you die
17:59 and we know right now there's no coming back from that so it's pretty much the mistake is already pretty much it's ingrained right mistake and it's going to cost your family sometimes five T times more to fix what you could have done the right way uh while you were alive right if if it even can be fixed yes right so I've got a situation right now where the the fellow died in testate and there are people outside his family that are you know pretty exercised about the results but there's no way there's no way to fix that they're you know they're not they're not even
18:34 disinherited they're just not even a part of the um you know a part of the the equation and and I think you know if if if like it was funny what you said about we don't come back I mean if I could go talk to this fellow you know and say hey look I've been appointed to administrate your estate you know what did what did you really want to do about these people I think he would have to have done something for them but he did absolutely so it's and it's it's really um you know it it it makes the whole thing not only more expensive but again more emotionally fraught so yeah absolutely all right so
19:13 um so so when it comes to this sort of do-it-yourself thing um and this is something I've noticed in in in my practice as a as a you know fiduciary um a lot of time like you said what I think I might save by doing something myself or without um uh Consulting with counsel end up just being a longer route around and it it seems to me that um
19:51 especially in the estate planning Arena lawyers have really adopted the use of technology in their practices as a way to work more efficiently and bring cost savings to uh you know to clients because of the technology am would you say that's a correct perception am I off base and by the way feel free to disagree with me if you think I'm wrong um but but that that's kind of my perception I'm wondering what you think about that well absolutely so I we when we look at artificial intelligence that's the thing
20:26 that's been all over the news and the media for past several years and you know and there's a lot of fears around hey Will Will this AI replace me as a as a professional in fact we've you may have not have heard this but there's lawyers who were citing cases that was erroneously you know created by artificial intelligence right right there was a big case where I believe it was here in California where there was a a lawyer who misstated cases that what he used artificial intelligence to generate his is research now here's what artificial re uh intelligence cannot
21:03 replace as a professional is your duty to supervise okay and so when you lean too heavily on artificial intelligence to to do your entire plan and don't take the steps to just make sure it's correct to fact check to make sure uh this provision has been added because it's a still technology and it's still prone to some error and so what we have to do as professionals is use the tool and the resources to be of course be more efficient right but not kind of obviate us from our responsibilities of making sure we have a polished a legal uh uh
21:38 document that's going to best represent our clients's interest you know because it' be yes we' all like to push a button and spit out a a a comprehensive trust with all the provisions that's going to be tailor fit it's almost like a custom tailored suit right you don't buy your if you buy your suit off the rack and you could tell it's a suit off the rack as opposed to it's been tapered and measured and It just fits better and that's what it it is when you're taking technology and you're using that to be more efficient now we use technology here uh at Legacy one Law Firm but we have virtual uh planning sessions where the majority of our clients can do all of their planning from the comfort of
22:13 their own home using zoom and other platforms to do so and we also have a a digital online client portal which uh several years ago we used to have to mail or send them a packet to fill out critical information and get that back to us we now have a secure online client portal which is protected and encrypted with the latest software and technology so our clients can feel safe that they have a client portal where they can upload sensitive data that is technology right right abut and leveraging that and making it easier for our clients to get some of that critical information in the beginning stages so we're all about
22:50 technology and its advancement but not at the expense of quality uh counsel and quality guidance and and holding your client's hand throughout the process and making sure that they're going to get the outcome that they're seeking so you know this is such a great conversation because as you're talking about these various issues I I you're you're raising other issues that I see that I think are so problematic so this issue of moving documents back and forth um I can't tell you how often in dealing with of all things Banks where they will
23:26 ask me to send them an email with you know account numbers or with tax ID numbers and I'll say to them you know I'm not comfortable sending that kind of information in an email where basically anyone could could get a hold of it do you have some sort of secure portal available and interestingly enough oftentimes the answer is no and the only the only like I'm I'm dealing with a a credit card company the only way I can get them a death certificate which also includes a um social security
24:01 number on it is to send it through conventional mail otherwise they want me to either you know fax it or or you know scan it and email it and I said you know I I I I I understand the person is dead but but still you know collecting Social Security numbers of of deceased people is is a full-time job for for a lot of people because it's an easy way to to do identity theft so absolutely would you talk a little bit how does how does this impact your practice well we have to put certain Technologies in place we have practice management software which provides
24:37 client portals and a way to upload uh sensitive documents uh we also have our own Standalone uh client portal for that that kind of guides our clients uh through this process and we also we're very careful we don't we don't collect Social Security numbers for example well we don't there's a social security number it's not required to create anate plan so that we don't even ask for so we selective about what we ask for and we we give our clients several options to submit this information to us I just had a consultation with a client or potential client who was very you know very reluctant to send certain
25:12 information in certain mediums because they had been a victim of identity fraud or identity theft in the past and so we have to provide them a a safe and secure way for them to feel comfortable even if it's something as old school as coming into the office and letting us take a physical copy and I've done that before of what they want to share with us but then we I do let them know that we take this we don't keep that loose information around the office we put it we we we have to digitally store that information now right because we want to go to a paperless uh paper it's safer to be paperless in most cases anyway so we
25:48 have digital storage with encrypted files so there's ways because a lot of risk can come with just having loose paper in the office right something that's loose so of course we have the cabinets and things of that nature but it's still a document that's loose so we have both physical uh and digital me means for clients giving us information and keeping that because there's laws out there there's confidentiality laws there's different privacy laws and we have to make sure that we're adhering to those in our client's best interest absolutely so unfortunately we're not going to have time to get over
26:23 to get through all four of your points but um why don't you of points three and four don't you you know raise one of those again and let's let's talk about that before we uh have to wrap up the show so one of the things that I talk about in my book is your team uh putting the right team of professionals around you because back to those blind spots you just don't know what you don't know and you being a professional fiduciary yourself can probably relate right to to knowing something that your client would have never thought of themselves that's why they're hiring us so when I'm when I'm counseling friends and family
26:59 members and sometimes I get approach with where do we start well it starts with assembling that right team many folks already have a tax professional that handles their their Tax Matters um many clients we received many clients from financial advisors so the same should energy and detail should be put into finding the right estate planning attorney uh someone that's experienced and someone who uh is not doing this as a side hustle if you will but someone who had their uh prct this area that primarily focused on the the day-to-day nuances and pitfalls that come with uh
27:35 trust in the states and family Legacy planning so your team the people who you put around you That's essential to making sure this is going to right uh your protecting and preserving what you've spent sometimes a lifetime to build right okay so and so the team um would be your your tax planner and or accountant yes um your financial planner you're a state planning attorney um who else might be a a part of that team well if you if you're dealing with real estate of course you have licensed real estate professionals you have professional fiduciaries such as
28:10 yourself right who may handle some administrative process we we get a lot of phone calls from the survivors who are the successor trustees and the trust and sometimes they like Cedric we don't have a clue can you lead us can you guide us now my firm does not do full service Administration we can cons offer some consultation and guidance and refer out to professionals such as yourself that handle the type of this type of matter because that should not be undertaken alone because there again you don't know what you don't know so most the beautiful thing about estate planning Kevin is that a trust a well-written trust gives your successor
28:45 trustees the ability to hire any professional to wrap up some final Affairs whether it be other attorneys whether it be lawyers whether it be real estate agents other fiduciaries if you don't know something it's best to hire the professional because you will be responsible as a fiduciary even if it's your child who's a truste right many many folks name their children as trustees and they don't know that this is a a fiduciary it's a position of high trust and that the other siblings can hold that other sibling accountable for
29:20 what they do they do not do so why take that risk just pass it off to a professional you don't have to use your own resources to do it that you can use the the resources from the estate to hire the appropriate professional to make sure it's done and it's done competently and and this is what I see sometimes in my practice is when you know one child is is named as a successor successor trustee but the other ones aren't so now you've got you've basically built in Conflict to this process and and the one whose named is the trustee oftentimes they don't
29:56 want to cause conflict it's but just seems inevitable and so now they're kind of you know they're in the hot seat so to speak and and so again you know getting that advice up front I think can help people avoid this well unfortunately the time just zoomed by we're we're already we're already done with the show but um you know we were Cedric and I were talking um before the show started that I was guessing we were I'm probably going to need to bring you back again to to talk again because there's there's so much here to unpack and and your experience um is is you know so deep
30:33 because this is this is what you do um and you know I would love to you know go through maybe some of the the difficult um you know cases and clients that you've dealt with as as kind of examples so people can see what are some of the problems that typically come up and how can they be solved that sort of thing so we we'll I'll have to have you back uh for a second time so but before I let you go um show us again your your book um so so people can and this is available is it available on Amazon or it is available Kevin right now on Amazon prudent planning for family
31:09 Legacy the truth behind Wills trust and Estates uh it's available on Amazon and we're it's soon going to be available on Audible we're working on that right now for all of my commuters here and California stuck in that traffic uh we'll be available on Audible soon so you can just listen to this uh what we think to be or believe to be valuable information on your driver commute to work but for right now this is a quick easy read it can be found on Amazon and uh I'm happy to provide any links or other resources that may be helpful to your audience if they want to uh obtain a copy of that book and it's
31:44 also available for uh Kindle as well so you can download the PDF and look at it right on your your smartphone or tablet okay so I'll put a link to to your book in the show notes to to Amazon um it'll it it be a an affiliate link so you know you'll you'll get a dollar and I think I'll get a penny or something if somebody it but but um I'm looking forward to to reading your book I didn't have a chance to read it before the show um but it it sounds like a tremendous resource I'm also going to put your contact information so anyone who's
32:19 watching if you have questions if you'd like to speak to Cedric um talk about your situation his contact information email address telephone number Etc will be in the show notes um feel free to give Cedric a call I can I can personally vouch for his knowledge as you can see it is it is deep it is Broad and and one of the things that that if you recall Cedric said in the very beginning that I think is so crucial is um Legacy 1 his firm is looking to
32:54 help you create a an estate plan that aligns with your your values and and that's I think critically important because in the end that is our Legacy it's it's it's what we leave behind is is is our values hopefully we've instilled them in in our children Etc um and and it should be you know the the issue around which our estate plans are built so thank you so much for coming on the show today thank you for having me thank you for having me Kevin pleas welcome very very welcome I'm
33:29 going to have you um H hang on here for just a minute while I wrap up the show and we can talk after we go offline so so folks thank you for joining us um hope you enjoyed the show hope you got um something out of it tomorrow at 10: am is my show business lessons from the military my guest is Joe chatin I knew I was going to blow his last name it's suchinsky and Joe started out as a as as a a soldier in the US Army and he has taken that knowledge to build to build a
34:05 tremendous business Mentor practice he's worked with over a thousand clients across the country and so you're going to see in action business lessons that have come from the military so I invite you to join uh Joe and me tomorrow and then on Wednesday at 10: a.m. Pacific time is the this month's edition of uh economic Echoes how the economy and and the what's happening within it impacts each of us as an individual I I I say this every month you know we don't live
34:41 in the average economy we live and how the economy affects each one of us and so we need to be able to look at economic data understand that and then get a sense of what does this mean for me for my family for you know for my business it's Etc so again 10:00 a.m. on Pacific Time on Tuesday and then a week from today we'll be back for the next edition of trust and Estates weekly so again I thank you for joining uh Cedric and me today Cedric once again thank you so much I always do Marie darling you are
35:19 my bell you know you are courage at all times my friends