Estate Planning as a Career

Have you ever stopped to wonder what gift your children or grandchildren would most value from you long after you are gone? The answer may be simply your story. Nothing could be more priceless to a child than to read and reflect on words of a loved one, drafted to transmit a three-dimensional perspective in a two-dimensional note. Not everyone can pass along a financial legacy, but everybody can transmit some of the richness of life by creating a Legacy Statement.

A Legacy Statement is a lovely ancient custom, one that is unfortunately not sufficiently known in our time. Typically, parents would write a letter to their children, in which, they would try to sum up all that they had learned in life, and, in which they would try to express what they wanted most for and from their children. They would leave these letters behind because they believed that the wisdom they had acquired was just as much a part of the legacy they wanted to leave their children as were all the material possessions.

The first Legacy Statements are found in the Bible. Jacob gathers his children around his bedside and tries to tell them the way in which they should live after he is gone. And Moses makes a farewell address, chastising, prophesying, and instructing his people before he dies. David prepares Solomon before he goes to his eternal rest by warning him whom to be wary of when he becomes king, and by asking him to complete the task he had begun and was unable to complete.

A Legacy Statement, also called an Ethical Will, is not unlike the stories recorded for Superman by his loving parents - offering guidance and wisdom on life’s situations far after they were available to offer such counsel personally. You are much richer than the sum of your material assets, yet your legal and financial papers address will only address the question, “What do I wan (more…)