Discover the strategies to protect your family's future and maintain harmony through expert estate planning with me, Greg McIntyre, and my esteemed colleague, Jordan Bentley. Together, we navigate the complexities of securing your legacy and resolving familial disputes with finesse. Our engaging conversation brings Jordan's extensive family law expertise to the forefront, sharing invaluable insights for anyone looking to safeguard their assets from potential marital splits and ensuring their wishes are honored.
In a world where money can stir up unexpected conflicts, we lay out an "instruction manual" for heirs, guiding asset distribution and fostering responsible stewardship. From crafting legally sound estate plans to tackling trust disputes and will caveats, we cover all bases. As litigation specialists, we're well-versed in confronting issues like insurance beneficiary fraud with determination. Tune in to equip yourself with the knowledge to not only preserve your estate but also fortify the bonds that matter most. Join us for enlightening perspectives on how to keep peace within your family, both in life and beyond.
Speaker 1:
Hi, I'm Greg McIntyre here for a new edition of the Elder Law Report, and today we're going to talk about estate planning, conflict resolution. The reason for estate planning is really to avoid conflict. So avoiding conflict in families and keeping the peace that is really at its core. A lot of the reason why we engage in estate planning or why people come to us is to keep the peace and the family, both when they're alive and after they're gone. And I have with me today fellow attorney in our firm, Jordan Bentley. And Jordan, you have some extensive experience at family conflict. You have a background in domestic law divorce, mediation, custody, things like that right and I'm sure you've seen a lot of conflict within families.
Speaker 2:
I absolutely have. Thank you, greg, for the introduction and for leading us into the topic. Yeah, the goal in any family dispute would be to settle it in the easiest you know, most pain-free, court-free way if possible. And in doing family law, certainly it's not a lot of that. Whether we're talking about doing a custody agreement or splitting up assets and a divorce, there's all kinds of things that need to be decided, no matter what stage of life you're in, and the idea would be to be able to do those with the help of an attorney or attorneys, a more mediator, in a way that keeps you and your wallet from having to go through a lot.
Speaker 1:
So one of the things that our clients are concerned about many times is, if they leave assets to a child, that that asset may be subject to a split and a divorce, that that asset may be split or lost to the spouse of a child in a divorce. You've seen a lot of fighting over assets and divorces and I imagine they can get nasty. Am I right? Absolutely.
Speaker 2:
I heard a judge one time in court say you know you can deal with. You can deal with being assaulted, you can deal with losing something, you can deal with having your car stolen. But the wounds that come out of family court, that come out of domestic disputes, those never really heal and you can imagine it's extremely personal stuff. And these are, these are deeply rooted relationships and to quote one of our attorneys, mr Samantha Gordon, money makes people do weird things and anytime there's assets on the table you don't know what's going to happen and we can help make sure that you do.
Speaker 1:
Sure, you know, I think in the estate planning side, in the work that we do, we are really engaging in setting a plan up that avoids that conflict, because we know that money can make people do weird things and we want our clients to have peace of mind that they have a plan in place that can guide their assets and keep peace in their families. Right, I mean, you know that is a lot of what we do. Even if children end up in domestic court fighting over assets and divorces, there are ways in your estate plan to simply set up assets so that separate property and not subject to that equitable distribution, that technical place you end up when you're dividing assets and divorce. Okay, right, that you can set up assets to go to grandchildren, not in lump sums, but to make sure it helps them go to college and then gives them money over time. There's many ways to set assets up using tools like trust, even in wills, so that you can avoid conflict when you pass away.
Speaker 2:
And I think not only is important that you're able to leave those things to the people that you care about, but that you're able to set up kind of a structure or an instruction manual, so to speak, for them to follow it and to use the money the way that you would have wanted them to.
Speaker 1:
I like that. It's a guide, it's an instruction manual. It's also legally binding so that it actually directs things. If anything ever comes to a conflict, a fight between the family over the estate plan or over the assets, we deal with that too. I mean, you know we are litigators who go to court and fight over trust and over caveats, will, disputes over breach of fiduciary duty, misuse of funds, insurance beneficiary fraud, where beneficiaries are changed last minute, you know, deathbed beneficiary changes, for example, and other fraudulent beneficiary changes. There's all kind of litigation that arises from what we do and we engage in that conflict resolution the hard way sometimes. But also our goal is always up front on the estate planning side to avoid that conflict, bring peace of mind to our clients and bring peace to the family. Jordan, I don't know about you, but that gives me a lot of pride that that's what we do.
Speaker 2:
Being able to help people avoid conflict and avoid stress. Yeah, that gets me up every morning and I think step two and then you kind of hinted at it, greg is sometimes that's not possible. Sometimes, you know, you have an upset family member, you have someone who's questioning something that was done right. Well, I think for us, rather than go to court, rather than fight over that, there's that middle step where we can resolve it. We can get on the phone with them, get on the phone with their attorney, shoot some emails back and forth, go to a mediation. So we want to avoid conflict. If we can't, we want to solve it as stress free as possible for you, and if we have to right, we'll take that conflict to court and advocate for you and get a result that makes you happy.
Speaker 1:
I love the term be a warrior in a garden, not a gardener in a war. So that's what I've, that's the way I view us and why I want all our attorneys to be really litigation capable and willing and actually like to. You know, if it comes down to it, you want to avoid conflict at all. You know, forever possible.
Speaker 1:
I guess you know Shenzhou art of war guy really throwing out some, some things this morning that that's one where the whole goal, you know what the whole goal of that book is, and the person that wrote that book, the whole goal in that book for the art of war, would do what Is to not go to war, like the perfect general would never go to war because they would always be able to solve the conflict short of battle or losing life, because when you do go to war, there is loss, okay, and and there's bad feelings.
Speaker 1:
So we want to understand that and be capable, and that's what you're talking about. Jordan is is be. We want to be capable of going to war but be strategic, which is the is the litigation, but be strategic in trying to avoid going to war, which is setting up a greatest state plan with the solving problems at the lowest level at mediation through working with other attorneys and then. But if it comes time where we need to go to court and we really need to go after it, it's all right, I'm capable of doing that.
Speaker 2:
I have speaking from experience and I know you can as well. I think what we're saying is we appreciate what family and domestic court can be. We appreciate how serious it is, the effects that can come from it. That doesn't mean we're afraid of it. That just means we understand the cost. We also understand the benefits and we're ready to go for you and to do what we need to do if necessary.
Speaker 1:
To avoid it at all possible but be, but when it comes time, be capable and ready and effective at doing.
Speaker 2:
I think it's fair to say we appreciate it and we understand it.
Speaker 1:
Agreed, agreed, so estate planning. I think it's super cool.
Speaker 2:
I would agree.
Speaker 1:
And it brings such value to our clients and their lives that it makes me proud to do it.
Speaker 2:
I think you said it earlier.
Speaker 1:
Peace of mind. Peace of mind, that is true. So I would love to help you and your family get your affairs in order, avoid that conflict we're talking about, avoid the wars within your family and set up a plan that you feel absolutely great about to avoid taxation, to avoid probate, to open up long term care benefits and bring peace to your family and leave a legacy. So I would offer a free consult with myself, jordan or another one of our attorneys who are great, by the way. You can take advantage of that consult by going to mclderallcom slash scheduling and schedule right on our calendars, or you can give us a call 1-888-999-6600. And thank you very much, jordan, for joining me today.
Speaker 2:
Okay, absolutely Glad to be here and looking forward to the next time. Yes, sir, we'll see you, bye.