NOTE: I am certainly not a lawyer and I’m not intending this to be legal advice.  Please consult with an attorney (as this article recommends) before making any estate planning decision.

Estate planning cannot be ignored when it comes to the importance of both saving and legally protecting your assets, especially in the face of economic uncertainty. Making the decision to plan for the future of your estate is not only responsible – it is essential. The planning needs to be done in an orderly and professional manner for the long-term safety of your weath.

Seeking the advice and services of a highly qualified estate planning attorney is the first step you should take in securing your estate for your family in the years to come. Due to the constantly changing landscape of estate and tax law, it is important that you look for an attorney who is a specialist and experienced in the field of estate planning.

Can Any Lawyer Do it?

Many people falsely assume that any lawyer can cover the basics required for estate planning.  They think it’s essentially  filling out documents and ensuring their legality.  Crossing the T’s and dotting the i’s.  However, this is not so.

Any lawyer can fill out the necessary documents, but you would be missing out on the expertise that a specialist could give you regarding the ins and outs of estate planning.

Going to a generalist for your estate planning needs would be like going to a general practice physician for expert advice on a neurological problem: A general practice physician could certainly give you advice, but a neurologist who has had extensive experience with cases just like or very similar to yours would be able to give you much better advice.

When you want expert advice, you seek the counsel of an expert in the field. It should be the same when you are looking for an attorney to help you with your estate planning needs.  Geographical differences may apply as well, since state and local laws can differ from place to place.  For instance, San Francisco estate planning attorneys may differ from New York or Philadelphia, so make sure to consult with a local expert.  Below I’ve listed a few attorneys that I’ve dealt with from a few different cities (I did my own estate planning on San Fran along with my parents in NYC).

What about Online Wills?

Online services like Legal Zoom have become very popular in recent years, and especially during the recent pandemic, as people were both concerned about their families future and unable to visit a lawyer in person.  However as many lawyers have noted, you should beware online wills, as they aren’t all they are cracked up to be.

Not only don’t online wills necessarily have all the details of your locality, but the fundamental fact is that a poorly executed will is worse than no will at all.

So cookie-cutter approaches are extremely risky, and should be avoided.

What to Look for in an Estate Lawyer?

In addition, when looking for the right attorney, keep these questions in mind:

• How long has he/she been in practice?
• How much experience does the attorney have in the area of estate planning?
• Does he/she offer you helpful suggestions that you feel a generalist could not offer you?
• Do you feel like you could have a good rapport with him/her regarding even your most personal concerns relating to your estate? Estate planning can involve divulging a great deal of confidential (and sometimes embarrassing) information. Having estate planning attorneys you can trust is important.
• Lastly, if you don’t already have relationshiop with the attorney, what does your gut tell you? Sometimes our instincts know a lot more than we might expect.

Researching and Searching for an Attorney

Whenever necessary, visit online websites for more information on estate planning tips before you start off. There exist plenty of resources online that are comprehensive in providing information on wills, revocable trusts and solutions on personal wealth management.

A little bit of information can be dangerous, so don’t try to become a lawyer overnight.  You merely want to be able to hold an intelligent conversation with the attorney, and perhaps spot any errors or BS that they might throw at you.

My Recommended Estate Lawyers

Johnston, Kinney & Zulaica – San Francisco

Estate Lawyer NYC – New York City

Ultimate Goals with Estate Planning

It doesn’t matter if your goals for estate planning are short-term or long-term, distinguished estate planning attorneys are better placed to guide and walk with you all through the planning process. they will inform you on the best options available to incorporate in your plan.

A properly drafted plan should be able to foresee the possibilities of scuffles arising in future and provide remedial measures to curb the situation. The remedies must have the support of the legal documents for validity should they be needed.

A small business lawyer offers legal services to small business owners. It is important to hire a good small business lawyer when setting up your small business. Hiring a good small business lawyer ensures you are running your business lawfully and your business meets all the required regulations.

The following are the top reasons to hire a small business lawyer.

1. Prevents Lawsuits

A small business lawyer reduces the exposure of small businesses from lawsuits such as employment lawsuits. It is important to be proactive if you want to prevent a lawsuit from occurring. Therefore, hiring a small business lawyer can save you several headaches down the road because you will avoid a lot of lawsuits.

2. Protects Intellectual Property

A small business lawyer can protect your intellectual property such as trade secrets, product designs, original works, inventions, logos, and business services. If you want to maintain your competitive advantage, hire a business lawyer to protect your intellectual property. Also, your lawyer can help you protect and preserve your legal rights.

3. Drafting Contracts

A small business lawyer reviews all business contracts for customers, employees, vendors, and many more. Your small business lawyer makes sure you capture all the necessary items in your contract. To produce a quality contract, hire an experienced and qualified small business lawyer.

4. Real-Estate Leases and Agreements

If you have an offline business, you will rent a commercial space like a warehouse, office building, and many more. If you are buying or leasing a commercial space, hire a business lawyer to review the agreements, terms, and contracts before signing. Hiring a business should give you peace of mind.

These are the top reasons to hire a small business lawyer. However, some small business lawyers are untrustworthy and unreliable. Therefore, you must do your due diligence when looking for the right small business lawyer.

References:

Small Business Lawyer NYC – NogLaw.com

What Is Bookkeeping?

Bookkeeping is a crucial thing for businesses of all sizes. For small businesses, it can be even more important. Without the proper bookkeeping, a small business can rapidly fail. On the other hand, the business can become successful if things are done right. While some small business owners choose to handle the accounting part of the business on their own, others choose to use services to fulfill this (such as Cloud bookkeeper sydney, among others).

With bookkeeping, a small business can record all of its transactions and events: sales, inventory, losses, earnings, purchases, payments and receipts. The purpose is obtaining and storing information about all the money that gets into the business and out of it. Bookkeeping is just one of the components of the domain called accounting.

What Are The Advantages?

• Having a Better Cash Flow

By recording your transactions and business events, you will be able to plan ahead and make things a lot easier. You will also be able to meet deadlines and pay everything in time. A small business needs to have an effective cash flow management in order to grow. You can ensure this for your business with proper bookkeeping.

• Performing Business Evaluations

You will also be able to make an evaluation of your business in order for you to know if the business is growing or not. Knowing where you are with the business at a certain point in time can help you to develop different strategies and make changes to improve it.

• Developing Performance Charts

Small business owners must know when to increase the number of their employees and bookkeeping can help them to understand when it is the best time to do this. You will be able to make comparisons between the current financial status of the business and its status from the previous years. In this way, you can analyze the growth and the losses and then create charts. The growth rate of your business can be established based on these charts.

• Ease of Paying Taxes

Another important aspect that is directly connected to bookkeeping is the way you pay your annual taxes. If you have an organized balance sheet and you know everything about the cash flow in your business, calculating annual taxes becomes easy. You will not have to search for all the bills and always be in a rush because of this. You will also spare your tax adviser some efforts and time. Instead of correcting your statements, the adviser will now be able to provide tax-related advice.

• Ease of Reporting to Investors

Bookkeeping can help you to avoid the hassles that are usually involved in reporting to your investors. Now that you have all the charts, lists and information prepared, all you have to do is present these materials to your investors. Bookkeeping allows you to keep everything well-organized. This is not only beneficial for your relations with investors, but also in case of an audit.

• Ease of Claiming Business Expenses

Expenses that small business owners want to claim as business expenses can be tracked and organized better with bookkeeping accounting. These business expenses must be submitted regularly.

Some people who start a small business may think that bookkeeping can be a burden. Even if it may be a little difficult in the beginning, it will allow you to save time in the long term. Proper bookkeeping (perhaps using a new modern cloud technology) is one of the things that can transform a business from a small one to a large one.