Your Strategic Planning Session Is With an Attorney
At Monteforte Law, your Strategic Planning Session is with an attorney. You also work with other members of our team, because a well-run estate planning process involves scheduling, gathering information, preparing paperwork, and carrying out the plan. Those roles matter, but they should support your access to legal advice. You should understand who is helping you and have an attorney involved in the decisions that require legal judgment.
How the Process Starts
The process begins with an intake conversation, which helps us understand why you are calling and whether a Strategic Planning Session is the appropriate next step. That initial conversation is not presented as a substitute for meeting with an attorney. It helps make the attorney meeting more useful by identifying your concerns and gathering relevant information beforehand. Our Strategic Planning Session page explains how the session works and what to prepare.
Your Questions Deserve Legal Judgment
When we discuss the plan, your questions deserve more than a form selection. You may want to know whether a trust makes sense, how to provide for a child with financial problems, or what happens if you need care. Those questions can involve competing goals and consequences that are not obvious from an intake questionnaire. An attorney needs to understand the facts, explain the available approaches, and help you evaluate the recommendation.
Room for the Hard Conversations
That meeting also needs room for the things people hesitate to put on a form. Perhaps one child is unreliable, or you are worried about a son-in-law’s influence. You may have promised something to a family member and now regret it. Those details can matter to the plan, even when they are uncomfortable to discuss. You should have the opportunity to explain them and hear how they affect the legal choices, rather than feeling that the documents were decided before anyone listened.
What the Rest of the Team Does
A capable support team adds considerable value. A paralegal may know exactly which document is missing, why an institution returned a form, or what needs to happen before the next appointment. An intake coordinator can help organize the first steps, and another team member may resolve a scheduling issue much faster than an attorney could. We respect that work. The concern is not whether staff participate, but whether legal questions receive the appropriate attention. Massachusetts’ professional conduct rules also make lawyers responsible for supervising the nonlawyers who assist them.
Matching the Question to the Person
It helps to distinguish the questions involved. Asking whether the office received a statement may be something a team member can answer directly. Asking whether transferring that account will affect your control or your MassHealth planning requires a different level of review. You should not have to pretend those questions are interchangeable. The process should connect you with the person equipped to address what you actually need.
Questions to Ask Any Firm
Before hiring a firm, ask who will discuss the recommendations with you and who handles questions as the plan develops. You can also ask how document explanations and signing appointments are conducted. Those are reasonable questions about the service you are purchasing, not signs that you expect the attorney to personally schedule every meeting or prepare every envelope. A firm should be able to explain its team’s roles clearly enough that you know what the working relationship will look like.
Legal Advice, Supported by a Team
Our attorney-led Strategic Planning Session gives you a place to discuss the legal recommendations directly, while the broader team helps carry the work forward. You should come away understanding why a particular plan was recommended for your circumstances and what needs to happen to establish it. The value of having a team is that several capable people can contribute to that work while keeping your family’s decisions at the center of it.
Start with a free 15-minute consult call with Nicole Ott, our Lead Intake Coordinator. Tell her what is on your mind and what you would like the plan to accomplish. That is usually enough for us to say what to do next.
