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A potential new client has contacted your office to see if your firm can prepare their estate plan. What is your first step? There is no one right answer to this question - some attorneys will schedule an in-person conference or an online meeting, others might schedule an exploratory phone call first. Some might email a questionnaire in advance to gather preliminary information, while others wait to do that until sitting across from the potential client. In this webinar, we will demonstrate various ways your InterActive Legal drafting system can help with this initial process, starting with that first contact, and then assist after you agree to the representation.

Every InterActive Legal drafting system includes standard time-saving features designed to streamline the drafting process.  Those features are often not evident "out of the box," since it takes a bit of time to get used to drafting in a new system.  However, pre-answered interviews, the option to add and assemble multiple documents, and the ability to copy one spouse's documents to create a mirror image estate plan for the other with just a few steps can minimize drafting time, and most users take advantage of those features.  Beyond those standard features are more options that each user can customize to not only save time, but also to make the system their own.  We will discuss these options to customize your system in both small ways and more advanced ways, and how those custom tools can provide the most streamlined drafting experience.

Estate planning often focuses on where property passes at death, either via a revocable trust or a last will and testament.  In some cases, however, a client may want to make gifts of property during lifetime, or they may be advised to do so for various reasons.  Those lifetime gifts could be made outright, but in many situations, the client may prefer to use a trust.  The donees of lifetime gifts might benefit from having the gifts in trust as well.  

In this presentation, we will discuss how to draft what are sometimes referred to as “Medicaid Asset Protection Trusts,” or “MAPTs.”  In InterActive Legal’s Elder Law and Special Needs Planning system, the trusts we refer to as the  “Income Only Trust” and the “Children’s Trust” are intended for Medicaid planning.   The different drafting options in each of these trusts will be explained, and we will consider why certain options might be selected in certain situations.  We will cover the income tax planning options in these trusts, including options for preserving the step-up in basis for trust assets and the capital gain exclusion for sales of personal residences (which are often transferred into trust for Medicaid planning purposes).  Finally, we will review using a Joint Income Only Trust and a Joint Children's Trust (one trust created by both Husband and Wife, as grantors), and the issues involved.