One of the things that many clients are often surprised to learn about estate planning lawyers is that they love their job. Being a lawyer is often a difficult task. Not only does it involve years of careful study and preparation, but it can be a very demanding, and often thankless, profession.
Most people rarely need to talk to a lawyer. However, if it ever comes time that you do need one, it’s usually because of some sort of conflict. Those conflicts are stressful for both the client and the attorney. This causes many attorneys to not like what they do.
But estate planning is often different. In many, if not most, estate planning situations, your lawyer may be one of the relative few who actually loves what he or she does. Here’s why.
Estate planning isn’t always confrontational.
A good estate plan is one that prevents problems. It looks down the road to what might, and will happen in the future, and then makes preparations. When you talk to an estate planning attorney, you usually aren’t doing so because you are embroiled in a legal conflict or are afraid of some potential legal consequence. Instead, you are looking ahead at your life and making a choice to make sure the future is secure for you and your family.
A good estate plan is a comfort, not a problem. It’s something that gives you strength, lets you sleep more soundly at night, and gives you the reassurance that, should the worst happen to you, your loved ones will be protected.
Estate planning can cause your lawyer to have a positive outlook.
Modern society tends to insulate us from death. We rarely talk about it, don’t like to think about it, and keep the mourning process largely isolated. Yet the fact that death is inevitable for all of us is not always a pessimistic realization. In fact, quite the opposite can be true.
When estate planning attorneys look at the legal, practical, and emotional realities that occur with death, they do so from a very pragmatic standpoint. If you ever ask an estate planning lawyer what the worst case was that he or she has ever been involved in, the answer will probably involve someone who died without an estate plan. Whether this was a family patriarch, beloved relative, or anyone else, not having an estate plan can be a complete disaster. It can ruin relationships, tarnish reputations, and lead to any number of contentious issues.
So, when an estate planning attorney finds out that someone has a carefully constructed estate plan, they tend to be optimistic. They know that, for that family, the death of a loved one will probably not lead to the disastrous situations the attorney knows can happen.
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