Tara (00:51):
Welcome to episode 33 of the Art of Estate Planning podcast. It's Tara here, and today's episode is all about your Must-have Estate Planning Resources.
(01:04):
So whether you are new to estate planning or if you are a seasoned succession lawyer, obviously having the right tools to make your life easier in terms of staying up to date, learning new things, researching issues, it's going to make all the difference to staying on top of law changes, finding answers fast, and basically living your best life as an estate planning lawyer. So in this episode, I just wanted to share some of the resources that I love and rely upon. Yeah, I don't want to gatekeeper. I want to make sure that we get the word out there and help. If this helps anybody feel more connected and have better access to resources, then I just think I'll have done my job. Now, firstly, I want to say I have a list written up for you already so you don't have to get out a pen and scribble these down.
(01:58):
I'm going to put in the show notes where you can download the list and also if you are listening to this and you think, oh my gosh, she hasn't put down this seriously awesome resource, please let me know. Put it in the Facebook group for the Art of Estate planning and I will put it on the list so everybody gets access to it because yeah, I'm not about gatekeeping. I want to share everything we've got and just we're a beautiful collaborative community in estate planning and I think this is a really nice way to get the word out there. So just a little background, I guess actually the thing that inspired me to put this list together and do this podcast episode is that I've had quite a few inquiries from lawyers who are looking to branch into estate planning. So they're experienced lawyers in another specialisation and they've been seeing how much fun we're having in estate planning and thinking, okay, I actually really want to get into that area and where do I even start?
(03:08):
And estate planning is kind of funny, right? In tax we've got the master tax guide and it's kind of the bible with everything. And I think that there's similar guides on other areas of law, but estate planning is kind of tricky because you've got succession rules and yeah, no federal legislation. Pretty much everything is state by state and it's different and every state. And not only is there one piece of legislation, we've got the trust legislation, you've got the succession or wills legislation, you've got the powers of attorney legislation, so there's multiple areas of legislation. Then you've got to add in other areas of law like trust law, superannuation, law, tax law, and then doubling on the fringes with family law. And can I just say, I haven't even mentioned a state litigation or a state admin. This is just like upfront getting your will drafted.
(04:14):
So it's not an easy thing to feel like you've covered the basis. So I thought let's put this resource together and we have got some incredible underground in the know resources that people should know about. So I guess I've got this into resources that are free that cost you nothing, and then also what should you invest in because it can be hard to know. Obviously estate planning resources are not cheap and yeah, what's worth spending your money on and what's maybe not going to give you that bang for buck. So I'll tell you what I think anyway and you guys can give me feedback too. So in terms of the free resources, obviously you know about this podcast. Incredible. So start here. We also are an excellent company with a couple of other podcasts. So I want to shout out the airwaves podcast now. This is Kate Brewer who is a barrister in Queensland and Michelle Davis who is an experienced lawyer in succession law.
(05:24):
And if you are looking for it, firstly there's just the URL and it's written down in the checklist, but if you haven't got that, they are so clever because the heirwaves is actually heir, oh gosh, it's HEIR, not AIR waves, but air as in you are the air of my estate, HEIR. So love that play on words. Well done girls. And also the Just In Case podcast as well is also a really interesting one too, I think. Get those in your ears. Grateful updates, technical issues. Who doesn't love learning while they're on the go in the car, on their walks, whatever. Can I shout out my own YouTube channel, which yeah, I am. There's a lot of resources here. I've practically dedicated my career to creating resources for you. So I'm not going to be shy about it, but my YouTube channel is a really great resource.
(06:23):
We have got so many free videos in there, really long form, hour long in-depth trainings on particular topics. There's ones that I've done, but there's also, we have so many experienced guests as well because every month in the Art of Estate planning Facebook group, we get usually a guest on and we do an hour long training on an estate planning topic. So we have had a huge depth of expertise in those guests coming on and they're all available to watch for free on the YouTube channel. So go and check that out. That's a great start. If you are new to estate planning, you will learn so much. It will be a little bitty ty and not a lot of structure to it, but if you've got a special interest topic, it's a great idea. A few other free resources. As I said, estate planning has just the most incredible community.
(07:24):
So I would get, if you're a Facebook person, get on there and check out. Firstly, our Art of Estate Planning Facebook group. I can say it's incredible because that group is actually so much bigger than me now, I created it, but when you see we've got over 2,600 members at the time of recording this, I hope I listen back to this in a few years and we've got like 5,000 or something that would be incredible. But at the time of recording we've got like 2,600 and there's financial advisors, accountants and lawyers, and that group goes off. I barely comment in there anymore. Everyone is just answering and supporting each other. We've got so many posts every day you can search the group, which is so powerful. I think people don't realise that, whereas, so if you've got an issue or you want to find out something, chuck in the search terms in that search box and you'll see all the posts and all the answers that people have generously shared in the past.
(08:32):
So it's a really powerful resource. Now, obviously you can't take legal advice from a Facebook group, but it's great for pointing you in the right direction and just knowing, especially if it's like, I need a specialist in this area or what resource should I look at or yeah, where do I even start to find the answer to this? There's also some other great Facebook groups. There's the Australian Succession and Elder Lawyers Group. If you're in Queensland, there's the Queensland Succession Law ladies and also the New South Wales Estate Lawyers and the New South Wales state lawyers, I will shout out. That is owned by one of our members, Janis. And it's an incredible group too. They have a lot of New South Wales specific issues. Poor New South Wales, you guys in New South Wales just have the quirkiest rules, whether it's stamp duty concessions, you always are doing something different to everyone else in New South Wales, and particularly I think a lot of the posts in that group are about the New South Wales probate court portal.
(09:44):
So yes, if you get stuck, I'm always referring people to that because obviously I'm not doing probate applications at all and definitely not in New South Wales. So when those questions come up, I've got no idea. So I always send them to that group. We might have a little break, and I'd love from you to hear from one of the lawyers in our community, Tyrone Dut. So Tyrone was the founder of Empire Law, and he is a perfect example of how you can upskill in estate planning. So he was a litigator for 10 years before he decided to reskill into estate planning. Again, just wanted something that was a little bit more family friendly with his little ones. And yeah, now he runs a really successful estate planning practise and he shares how he did it.
Tyrone (10:41):
Got the precedence right, and I am able to act with confidence because for 10 years prior to that, I was just purely in court every single day. And so to jump into a new practise and a new area of law was daunting. So the precedents gave me that confidence, but then also the community around it, really welcoming, no dumb questions. Everyone's just here to help each other out and spread really the message in order for every Australian to get an estate planning. So that was the massive bonus for me. It was being able to have precedents that you can have confidence in.
Tara (11:26):
Okay, I'm back and now I want to share some of the resources that might be worth spending a little bit of money in. And I've selected these in terms of thinking about, okay, how are you going to stay on top of changes in the law and cases coming through and all the developments? How are you going to learn the foundations of core principles and then resources that are just going to make your life easier? Because let's face it, sometimes I feel like my whole job is just emails. It's so overwhelming. I subscribe to all the updates from all the tax super state planning bulletins, and I just get so many emails every single day. And then also all the training organisations, there's so many emails about what training they're running. And look, you guys probably feel like I fall in that category and you're getting a lot of emails from me too, but what I've tried to do here is just break it down to what is going to give you the must have when there's something critical?
(12:34):
How are you going to find out about it without wading through all of that email junk? I don't want to say junk, but you know what I mean, the bulk of it. Because what ends up happening, right, is you don't even end up opening any of it and it just gets lost and it's in the ether. So this is about whether you're starting out or you are experienced, how can you keep your finger on the pulse in the most effective way because running your practise and working in your job is hard enough without also trying to read every single thing that's coming through. So, okay, let's start with courses and memberships. So for the people who are looking to upskill in estate planning and get started from another practise area, the one resource that I think will be really powerful for you, and I have to say I haven't done it, so this is really just from my research and looking at the programme, is the College of Laws course Essential Guide to Wills and Estates Practise.
(13:40):
So the College of Laws have got a really built out succession law programme and proper diplomas and all of that. This is not getting a master's or a diploma, it's just an online course. I think it's like a selection of mini online courses put together. So it's available anytime from what I can tell. They could just change it, but at the time I'm recording this, obviously it seems to be available anytime and you just learn it on demand so you can just do the research and study on your own timeline. And to me, I think that looks incredible and it really sort of goes to the core fundamentals of what is a will and what is powers of attorney and the drafting principles and all of that, which I think is great, especially if like Tyrone, you're like, okay, I'm an experienced lawyer and I want to start my own firm in estate planning, you kind of don't have the benefit of learning on the job doing wills under a mentor, so something like this could be a really powerful way to get a shortcut and get up to speed.
(14:54):
Obviously you have to do all your reading and all the textbooks and everything too, but this is a really nice curated guide. We also want to shout out our course at the Art of Estate Planning Testamentary Trust, the Essential Guide for Australian Lawyers, and I called it The Essential Guide because I want it to be or it is the definitive guide for testamentary trust. I wanted to create something that is just everything you need to know about testamentary trust communicated clearly and plainly because when we get to testamentary trust in textbooks, it's really complicated language they use and some of the concepts are explained in a really complicated way and it doesn't need to be, and I just think anyone preparing wills and testamentary trust should do that course. Look, I'll just say I really wanted to make it as part of my legacy for the profession, which whether it will stand the test of time and prove to be that I don't know, but that's what my mission was when I set it out because I know so many people struggle with testamentary trust and unless you've had the privilege of working and being mentored by someone who does testamentary trust all the time and you've had years of experience in it, it's a really hard area to break into.
(16:12):
So I think that course is really powerful. If you beyond the beginner level, I think you'll get a lot out of that course. We've also got our TT Precedents Club membership. Now that is the most beautiful membership and community out there. We've got at the time of recording over 220 lawyers in Australia. And again, I thought when I made that, that it would just be me yapping away giving everyone the answers. But it's such a beautiful collaborative environment in our hot seats. If you've been to one, you'll see so many people are contributing and sharing their particular experience, lessons, insights. I don't know everything about everything. Clearly if you've listened to this podcast, you'll know that. But together with over 200 people who are passionate about estate planning, we collectively get pretty close to knowing everything about everything. And not only is it great for knowledge, it's just the most beautiful community.
(17:15):
So many of our members have formed beautiful friendships networks. If you're feeling like you're a little bit on your own, then the TT Precedents Club will just make you feel like you are so supported and that you have that resource and community that you can tap into. You don't have to be doing everything showing up to every week commenting on every post, just knowing that we're there when you need us, I think is really powerful. Rounding out the courses and memberships. I want to shout out Zinta Harris, resolver state law and her collaborative practise trading for wills and estates. Zinta is just leading the field when it comes to collaborative practise and dispute resolution, and I think that I haven't done the programme yet. We've got so many members in our TT precedents club who have though, and I really, it's on my list of programmes to do.
(18:13):
It's just been hard for me with the locations and having little babies at home to be able to get away to commit to doing it. But it is on my wishlist and I now that my youngest is two, I am going to make that course happen anytime. Okay, textbooks. So I'm just going to read out a list of the textbooks that I have that I like to reference, and some of these, they're not all sitting in my beautiful bookshelves. I actually have some of them through a digital subscription. If you are in Queensland, and I can only really speak to Queensland, I don't know if the other states have this, but maybe check it out with your law society because in Queensland, the law society gives small law firms access to the Queensland Supreme Court Virtual Legal Library, and in there we get free access to reading and searching.
(19:10):
A number of the online texts like Jacob's Law of Trust is on there. I think Wills and maybe or maybe not the John De Group one, the law of executors and administrators, perhaps. There's quite a few on there. Huley is on there. There's a couple of others that are really like you can just search. So if you are in Queensland and you're a small firm and you're not using that, go and go through the hoops with the law society to get access to it because such a free, tremendous resource. So here's some of the textbooks that I have in my bookshelf that I refer to all the time. So principles of Australian Succession Law by Ken Mackey, a couple from Delpont. I've got the powers of attorney one and the law of executives and administrators in Queensland. There's Lee's Manual of Queensland Succession law. I love the Jacobs Law of Trusts.
(20:03):
I just like the way that they explain a lot of the trust stuff. Our Queensland estate planning royalty, John DeGroot has got Will's probate and administration practise, which is a good one. Now a big shout out to the b and r team. So Ian Rasman and Lynn Freshwater, there's no one else that I think of besides these guys. I always think of them first when it comes to tax and estate planning. So their book Taxation of Deceased Estates, CGT on a deceased residence and the Australian Tax Pitfalls of Administering an Estate with International Connections are really powerful tax resources. They explain things so clearly and I would just definitely have those on your textbook list as a resource to have. And then another one that I actually recommend a lot in the TT precedents club, and it's not really about estate planning, but it's value pricing.
(21:02):
So implementing value pricing by Ron Baker is a really powerful book as well. So we dive into a lot of the principles from that book in our pricing toolkit. So if you've got the pricing toolkit, you don't necessarily need to get the book, but if you are, especially going from time billing to fixed pricing, which is where the magic happens in estate planning, I think you'll really like that book. Alright, now to wrap this all up, I want to talk about resources that are going to just give you more time back in your business and those are precedents. So I am going to just shout out the precedents that we have at the Art of Estate planning because we put so much time and energy into creating these resources, keeping them updated, coding them, and getting feedback on them from our members. Like someone said to me, wow, how are you updating your precedents all the time and keeping them so current and how do you know what is happening across all the jurisdictions?
(22:09):
And my answer was, it's because not only do we have over 500 law firms using them on all their clients every day and testing them because of our TT Precedents Club membership, we have an environment where that feedback is getting given to us regularly in real time. So when someone is trying to use the precedents in a scenario that we haven't catered for, they come to the TT precedents club and we talk it through and I'll go, great, we should make this change to the precedent so everyone gets the benefit or yeah, this is how it works, or this doesn't work for that scenario, but we need to tinker with it to make it work. Or Gee, I didn't realise in South Australia you guys have this nuanced thing. Let's factor that into the precedent. So this is just different to a lot of the other ways that precedent providers do it because we've got this two-way communication, which I just think is incredible.
(23:09):
Also, I do want to shout out, we've put a lot of time and effort into coding our main precedent packages with the wills and all the letters and everything so that they've got Coding for Action, step Leap, smokeball, and Top Secret. We're working on Cleo at the time of recording, so watch this space. So yeah, we really try and make it as effective, save you so much time by having it coded instead of just the old fashioned manually replacing that removes errors. It just makes things so much more powerful and effective. Like doing a testamentary trust will takes no more time than a simple or basic will because of the coding and the precedent's way they're set up. The other thing that we also try and do, it's make them really user friendly. So it's not just like, here's the precedent in our BDBN precedent pack for instance.
(24:10):
There's flyers that come with it that you can put your firm branding on, make them look beautiful, and it's like, okay, what's a BDBN? Why isn't my super dealt with under my will? What is a super proceeds trust? And they're really clear. I've written them, explain it to me like I'm 10 years old. I've written that in plain language on one or two pages that you can put on a beautiful flyer for clients to hold onto, take home, understand those core principles just to make your job so much easier and the client experience better. So it's not just like the technical document, it's everything around it, the letters, the flyers, like our BDBN precedent pack has a letter for you to send to the financial advisor of the self-funded super fund to say, this is the strategy we've chosen and this is why, and we need your approval before the client signs the BDBN kind of thing.
(25:10):
We've thought about everything. So the precedents packages there, we've got all the wills, all the letters, meeting agendas, file note templates, structure diagrams, estate planning, like flow chart diagrams to show where the assets are going. We've got B Dbn for self-managed super funds, deeds of successor and deeds of variation for family trusts when we're dealing with family trust succession, powers of attorney for companies and trusts, a letter of wishes pack. We've got not only our base letter of wishes, but our supercharged Letter of wishes workbook that we created in collaboration with Bernadette Duell of Great Southern Wheels and also our pricing toolkits. So like priceless templates telling you what to price. We've got spreadsheets to help you work out the minimum of what you should be pricing so you can pay yourself enough. We've got our cost agreement terms so that you can protect your firm and set up clear expectations for clients in your cost agreement about what's included and not excluded, all these things that come up just for estate planning specific issues.
(26:27):
I've talked about that a lot so I won't dive into it. But yeah, check out our precedents if you're sitting there going, I love estate planning, but I'd like to get my profit margins a bit higher and get more time back in my day. These precedents are really designed to help just streamline everything and get you off the word processing and reducing your risk and being able to spend more time actually with your clients or marketing your business or just with your loved ones. So I'm going to wrap it up there. Get the free download of the list from the show notes so you don't have to scribble everything down. If you have anything that you think I have missed and needs to be on that list, please put it in the Art of Estate Planning Facebook group and we will update the list to include it and feed that back to the wider community.
(27:20):
Well, thank you so much for bearing with me as I'm doing this episode solo without Carrie, and I am so grateful for you listening. If you liked what we're doing here, I'd love it if you could leave us with a review as well. The reviews really help making us be seen in the podcast apps and also gives me feedback about what you like and don't like. It just absolutely means the world to me to know that you're listening and if there's any particular topics that you think resonate with you more than others or something that you think that we should cover, feed it in because we are so adaptable, I can always change up the topic list and make sure we answer your topic for you.
