Module 1: Understanding the Territory

In this first module, we will review the basic documents that comprise an estate plan: Wills, Revocable Living Trusts, Durable Powers of Attorney for Finance, and Advance Health Care Directives. You’ll learn what purpose each document serves, when it is used, what kind of skills a person will need to have to use that document, and why each is an important component of a comprehensive estate plan.

Module 2: Getting Yourself Organized

In the second module, we will focus on gathering the information you’ll need to put your plan together and keep your family informed of the information that they’ll need after you die. Working in an organized, piece-by-piece manner, you’ll put together your own personal inventory that lists your real property, your investment accounts, your insurance information, your retirement plans, government benefits, pensions, credit cards, vehicles, memberships, and passwords. We will also review how each of these assets is owned, whether by you as separate property or as community property (depending on where you live).

Module 3: Naming Names

In the third module, we’ll focus on how to choose people for the jobs that an estate plan requires: Executors, Trustees, Agents for Finance, Agents for Health Care, and Guardians for minor children. You’ll learn what each job entails, and what skills it requires, and begin to put together your ‘dream team’ of fiduciaries. We’ll also discuss using professional licensed fiduciaries, banks, and trust companies for people who don’t have children or close relatives or friends to call on. I’ll offer you tips and tools for breaking logjams if you get stuck, especially in choosing guardians for minor children.

Module 4: Death and Taxes: Estate, Gift, Income and Capital Gains Taxes

Module four is all about taxes and how to make an estate plan that is smart about them. We’ll discuss many kinds of taxes: estate taxes, gift taxes, income taxes (as they relate to estate planning) and capital gains taxes (as they relate to inheriting assets). My goal here is to clarify which of these taxes are likely to matter to your plan, and the best way to minimize them by making good decisions, now. We’ll discuss how retirement assets and life insurance fit into your plan, too.

Module 5: The (Really) Big Picture-Building Your Legacy

In Module Five we will end where we began—why bother—but go deeper. Estate planning can be so much more than just a process of putting together a set of legal documents and understanding how to use them. Estate planning can be an opportunity to consider what kind of legacy you’ll leave behind when you die, as we all inevitably will. In this module, we’ll consider our time, our treasures, and our talents and discuss what we can leave behind that will help our loved ones understand our values and our hopes and dreams for their futures. We’ll start by remembering gifts we’ve been given, and how these gifts have changed us. Then, we’ll consider our time, our treasures, and our talents and discuss what we can leave behind that will help our loved ones understand our values and our hopes and dreams for their futures. Finally, we’ll take these ideas, in whatever form: a Letter to Family, a Family History, a Photo Collection, an Oral History, or some other way that you dream up, and discuss concrete ways you can get that done. I’ll try and provide you with tools for getting started and the inspiration to get it done. We’ll also discuss Funeral and Memorial Arrangements, how to document what you do and don’t want and how to make final arrangements ahead of time.