Tara (00:51):
Thank you so much for tuning in. You're joined by Tara again and this episode, you might really like it or you might just think it is such a snooze fest.
(01:04):
So yeah, I don't know, but this is what's going on with me right now. So at the time of recording, this will actually come out, oh, like a month after I've recorded it. So I am recording it now. This is what I'm living and breathing and dreaming about at the moment. I probably will have moved on to something else by the time of release, but I just thought maybe there's some of you who are a little bit curious about what goes on behind the scenes and how this works.
(01:38):
So I want to take you behind the scenes of our latest precedent update release. So if you're in the TT precedents club and you have our art of estate planning precedence, then you get free updates and maintenance of your arn of estate planning precedence. That is our promise, and I take that incredibly seriously. So I am always scrounging through the updates, the law, society and insurer updates, the case law judgments, the legislation changes to make sure that we're on top of when things need to change in our precedents.
(02:19):
I really feel that's my responsibility and duty to our members because when you have a full caseload with matters, it's really hard to get to all that extra stuff. So that's my job. And what we do is keep a big list of things that we need to change in our precedents to constantly improve them. So obviously if there's a change to the law, then we release an update immediately as needed in response to that. And then what we also do is try to do an update or twice a year depending on our user feedback. So when we first started with the precedents, we would release them a couple of updates a couple of times a year, and that was because we were getting a lot of feedback. It was new. The precedent started as the precedents I used and developed for my firm in Queensland.
(03:22):
So as we were getting more and more feedback about interstate users and more people testing them on different client scenarios, more feedback was coming in. So we had a lot more to be responsive to. Now I think our last update has been, or it's been about a year since we did an update and we are well and truly due for one. So that's what I'm working on and part of me is like, oh, I should be releasing updates all the time, but I actually don't think our members want to be dealing with incorporating updates into their precedents all the time either. So what we do is obviously the urgent time sensitive and important updates that come from changes in the law and cases get released straight away, and then we sort of batch the other updates. So most of our other updates come from our TT precedents club weekly calls where we've got our members bringing client scenarios to the call and saying, do I need to customise the precedent to deal with this scenario?
(04:30):
Does it already address that? What about this wild and wacky thing, which doesn't look like it's been contemplated in the drafting? And based on that and questions and applying them through different scenarios, we go, yeah, that could be improved. Let's clarify that. There's a lot of for clarities getting added into the precedents, which I love, right? Because when I draught these clauses that go into the precedents, I'm trying to think of all the scenarios that I've had experience with and that I can think of, but it's like impossible to do that. And where else am I going to get hundreds of lawyers around the country testing these wills on hundreds and hundreds of clients. So at the Art of Estate planning, we have over 500 law firms using our precedents and we have over 220 something members of the TT precedents club. So a little under half of those precedent firms are in the TT precedents club and they're giving me two-way feedback every week on where things are working or not working.
(05:46):
And yeah, how else would I get that incredible feedback. So yeah, what we do is every time someone has a question or sends in feedback, we consolidated and now it is up to me and the team to roll out those updates. So here's a bit of an example of what we've been working on, just a bit of scene setting if you aren't familiar. So we have coding versions of our precedents. So you get word documents with the precedents in them. So firstly, if you don't like Calibri, if you want to use the Aptos font, oh my god, I dunno why you would, but I'm a Calibri girl through and through. If you want to change your font, then you can do all of that. You can customise your page, like your title page, your fonts or whatever you want. You customise it, you can change the clause if you particularly prefer a way that you do a particular clause, you can do that, but so you get them as word, but you can choose, they come with coding in them as well.
(06:52):
So if you're not using our coding systems, then you don't have to do that. You can use the old global replace to put in all the names, but if you've got leap, actionstep or smokeball, it actually comes with the coding in there and then you put them into your practise management system, it will talk to the way you've set up your matter and populate the documents. And our real philosophy is minimising hands on keyboard. We minimise user error and we embed where we can a lot of conditional logic as well. So particularly for action step and Smokeball, there's so much conditional logic about if the trust is benefiting the surviving spouse, then there's clauses that you will see that come in automatically and there's clauses that you don't need that automatically are removed with leave and our no coding option, there's a user note which says, are you setting up the trust for the surviving spouse?
(07:59):
Leave this clause in. If you are setting up the spouse, the trust after the spouse has died, take this clause out so it's not as automatic as Smokeball and action step, but it still works. Okay, now's a really good time to share this, but as part of this release, one of the huge things we've been working on is coding for Clio. So if you are a Clio user, hallelujah, because our precedents are coming with the Clio coding and I am so thrilled because it's been a long time waiting for this and we've had to get a little bit scrappy with the solution we've come up with, but I mean we haven't released it yet. So at the time of recording this, but it will have been released by the time you listen to it. So I am just going to back ourselves in and say that we did it and it's awesome and I'm really proud of it and I'm so thrilled to be able to provide this to you.
(08:59):
And also I just have to say a huge thank you, I dunno if you'll listen Adele, but a huge thank you to one of our members, Adele Anthony, because I could not have been able to deliver this to all of you without Adele's incredible support and hard work and ingenuity on this. So yeah, that's a huge milestone for us at the art of Estate planning to be able to help our Clio members because the coding is huge. If you can generate the precedents in your matter system instead of manually, oh my god, the profit is just a matter is streamlined, chef's kissed, oh, it's so much better. You'll increase your profitability instantly. I love it. So one of the things that we are doing as well is been working on increasing or improving the functionality of our action step integration for our executives, our guardians, our trustees and pointers.
(10:04):
So in our smokeball at the moment, our Smokeball had the gold standard of clause drafting for those roles and action step was lagging behind. So we have now made it so that we've got coding that reflects in your matter template, about 10 or 12 different combinations for each of the executors, the guardians, the trustees and appointor. So you can have up to three tiers. So like your initial, your first backup and your third, or what do we call it, further backup. And then you can have multiple or one or two plus for each of those as well. So we've got one initial two backups, one further backup, one initial, one backup, three further backups, like all these different random combinations for executives, guardians, trustees, and pointers. The grammar should be correct, it should just pop in, you just give it a little tick and you're done.
(11:08):
No bespoke drafting there. So that's going to save our action step users a tonne of time, which I'm really proud of. I mean, testing those combinations might've nearly killed me, but we have done it. So that's, I'm really thrilled with that. I got to say, guys, the testing, it's like you upload it into the system, you run the scenario with your dummy matter, you read it, you realise there's two full stops somewhere and the indent isn't right on that paragraph. And you go and make all the changes messing around with full stops, literal word processing, and then you re-upload it and rerun the test scenario and check and then you find something else. The testing is so tedious, it's the most, I really have to dig deep when I test these precedents for you guys because I know that by me testing them and finding all those little bugs and there's not really very many bugs, but sometimes when I update them I put a bug in and then I have to get the bug out and occasionally there are little typos and things.
(12:14):
I know that by me doing this tedious, methodical work, we've got 500 law firms and out of those 500 law firms, there's multiple lawyers in each of them using it. And for multiple clients, I know the trickle down effect is huge. And if I can do the hard work so that you guys aren't like 500 people, don't all have a double full stop in their will, then that is just incredible. It's amplified so much. So that's what keeps me going. But sometimes it can be really testing, pardon the pun. Oh, you might be listening to this thinking, I've really lost the plot and I almost might have because yeah, it is not my favourite part of the role at the art of estate planning, but it is probably one of the most important. So I do treat it with that gravity. So we test a scenario and there's like you've got to test the no testamentary trust will.
(13:13):
The basic will. We've got to test a testamentary trust will where we're providing for a spouse, a testamentary trust will where the trust is set up after the spouse has died, and then are we excluding foreign persons? Are we including foreign persons? Are we setting up our foreign person, excluded testamentary trust, is it a single testamentary trust? Is it a multi testamentary trust? Are we setting up a single trust for the surviving spouse and then multiple trusts for the children after the spouse has died? And when there's 10 different scenarios that we have to keep testing, and then that's just for a couple. And then what about the individual? Obviously we don't have to deal with the spouse scenarios, but we still have to test for individual clients of a single or a multiple foreign person excluded, including foreign persons. Are we doing our special purpose foreign person excluded testamentary trust as well?
(14:13):
So there's like for each practise management system, there's like 15 different scenarios that I have to test that the updates all work, that they're consistent with each other, that we haven't made an error when we're updating them, that the coding works, that we haven't broken the coding on something else. So it's a lot and we don't release them until we make sure that they are as perfect as we can get them. So yeah, that's what I'm sort of doing behind the scenes and it is slow going, but the impact is amplified exponentially across the Australian estate planning industry. So it's important work and I take it very seriously. Some of the other things that we've been working on is just for all of our practise management systems, no matter which one you're using is just some slight improvements like for instance, with the way that we draught our executor and guardian clauses, clarifying that the successor named or the backup named is actually nominated.
(15:20):
Obviously if the first people or the initial people die or can't take on the role at the date of the test data's death. But then also if they accept the role and then throughout the duration of administering the estate and completing their duties, they then removed for death or they just are willing to act or incapacity or something and clarifying that our backups then are nominated for that event as well. So just really tightening up this unable and unwilling to act. And what does that mean? We've also tied it up our successor appointor and trustees. So if you actually listen back to a few episodes, episode number 35 about dealing with family trust succession in the will. In that episode I talk about nominating a successor through a deed of succession for the role of appointor and maybe the trustee or maybe not the trustee if you've got an appointer who can replace the trustee.
(16:22):
So we're tidying up the interaction between our definitions of trustee and appointor because as I mentioned earlier, we are allowing our drafters to say we've got an initial backups or first backup trustees and appointor and then our further backup trustees. And so what happens where we've got backups and further backup trustees and appointor named, but the current appointor who's actually, when the trust is enlivened, has gone and done a deed of succession, which takes priority, what happens? What if the deed of succession doesn't address that? So we are just making it super clear what happens in that scenario, super clear where you've got joint people appointed to the role. What happens if one of them can't act? Can they continuing people keep going or not? Those types of things. We also are updating our bypass clause, so our ability to bypass the testamentary trust, just to tweak it to make sure that it applies also to specific gifts.
(17:32):
So it mostly applies to the residual estate gifts, but allowing it to apply to residual estate and specific gifts. And also our default clause for income, actually default clause for capital, sorry, in the testamentary trust deed itself. So our default clause says at the vesting date, if the trustee doesn't exercise their discretion to allocate the income and the capital of the trust at that date, it goes through to the primary beneficiaries who are living if more than one, then an equal shares as tenants in common. But if there are no primary beneficiaries living, then what it does is actually reverts back to the people who would have received the residual estate had the date of death been the vesting date. So had the test data died at the vesting date, let's import the people who should have been entitled to the residual estate then, which can be, it's tricky, right?
(18:38):
Because the trust can run for 80 years and we're trying to use this residual estate clause and import that in to the trust terms to try to tie it into the intestacy rules and the gift over provisions and all of that so that we are not left without anybody. And also so that our trustees doesn't have to go hunting through the secondary beneficiaries, which is such an expansive class. But that default clause poses some questions about, okay, what if the other with a multiple testamentary trust clause, what if there's another testamentary trust that's entitled and it has already vested or has the same vesting day? What if they did elect to bypass the testamentary trust and it went to individuals and those individuals aren't living? What about if there's foreign persons who were entitled like on calamity are and the testamentary trust excludes foreign persons as beneficiaries?
(19:44):
Are those calamity foreign persons imported in as beneficiaries of that testamentary trust despite the express exclusion, what takes priority, for instance? So just tidying that up and I have to say a huge thank you to our members who are looking at this with such a microscope and going, yeah, what about this scenario and that scenario, and it's kind of at the edges very remote, but why wouldn't we fix it up if we've thought about it in Queensland, we've got our new trusts bill replacing that old trust act from the seventies, and there's a few things that we're tweaking there like the perpetuity period as being expanded. So updating for that for when that bill becomes law or if it becomes law, we're also just doing things to help with the client communication. So we've released a new flyer about why we have to think about excluding foreign persons from testamentary trust.
(20:44):
So a really plain, explain it to me like I'm 12 years old, a flyer that lawyers can give to their clients to say, look, we need to come up with a strategy for this, and this is why even though you don't have any foreign persons in your family, this is why we need to think about it if you are using a testamentary trust just to help with those conversations and to prime the client, and those are really fun. I actually love doing those flyers because I'm like, well, okay, get out of my lawyer brain, how can I write this as simply as possible? And then we design a flyer and we also have it in Canva, so it's a Word document or a Canva template and you can pop in your branding and your logo and really customise it to make it look and feel really, and like your firm document, we already have a lot of flyers like that, like an annual review checklist and a testamentary trust explainer.
(21:40):
So we're just adding to our suite of flyers to help. And I feel like I love that when you just hand those out in the client meeting, it gives the clients something to tangible to walk away with or scribble in the margins of a couple of other things like the division 296 tax on super for couples, just adding a flag in the meeting agenda and file note templates to think about if we've got a couple with a really high super balance and one of them dies and leaves a pension to the surviving spouse, are we going to be looking at triggering that tax and should we just be flagging involvement with the financial advisor on that? Now also, since we last prepared the updates, the government has removed the work test from the withdrawal and re-contribution strategy that is available and the age is now, the top upper limit is 75, so we're updating our notes on that.
(22:45):
We also look at things that like, as I said, law societies and insurers release in Queensland especially like Lexion is really good at releasing the updates and telling us what they think. I find the Lexion resources very risk focused and not client friendly, but it is really helpful for us just to refer to them. So having a look at what they've been suggesting practitioners include and obviously taking guidance from that as well. Now I'm just going to have a sip of my cup of tea and I would like to leave you with a message from one of our lovely clients, Louise Moulton of Louise Moulton Legal about how she uses the precedents in her firm.
Louise (23:33):
Hi, I'm Louise from Louise Moulton Legal. When it came time for me to make the big decision to go out on my own in my own sole practise as a wills and estates lawyer, I had no hesitation in taking advantage of my wonderful Art of Estate Planning group and purchasing Tara's amazing precedents. And I have done the training and it makes me the estate lawyer that I am today, and I might be a sole practitioner, but I know that I've got the whole network across Australia standing behind me as if we are one great big office together and I can work with them to create the best outcomes for my clients and giving them that peace of mind that we know a good estate plan can give. So Art of Estate Planning. Love it. We'll always be with you. Bring it on.
Tara (24:24):
Okay, I'm back. And thank you so much for those beautiful words, Louise. A couple of other things that we are just throwing in are risk notes on our intakes and customer instruction forms about heads up if the client is looking at going through the voluntary assisted dying process so that we are on notice of that. Also, just updating our risk checklists to look at things like have they donated embryos and do we need to factor that into our conversation and planning? And the last thing I've been working on, which is the bane of my existence, but we've got to do it, I think, well, yeah, we've had a bit of a setback, but I'm confident by the time that we release this, it will be fixed, I hope is our formatting. So all of our documents have nice consistent formatting and styling with lots of different numbering options to try to make it as easy as possible for our cross-referencing and to insert new clauses except for our letter of wishes template, which is our problem child document, and we are trying to fix it up and bring it up to the standard of our other documents because it is a tricky little thing and we've got tables and check boxes and different things trying to make it user friendly for clients.
(25:47):
But yeah, we're just really, that's our sort of last loose end on the formatting and styling and I am no word processing tech at all, but I have a great team who are. And so they are trying to sort that out for us as well as I have to say a shout out to our action step team who have been incredible with our action step documents. Actually we have for our new customers, we have a one click link. So if you're an action step user and you buy our precedents, you can just click a link and it will set up a custom matter template for you and the precedents will be preloaded If you're using the other systems, there's instructions where you have to set up your own matter template, I'm sorry, and upload the precedents yourself. But once you spend the time doing that, then you're ready, set, go, and you don't have to do it again.
(26:39):
So a little bit of foundation work will really make things run super smoothly. And also if you're really curious about how we do it, we send our members obviously the updated templates, but I know that so many of our members do customise their templates and at the art of estate planning, I'm not telling everyone exactly what they have to do. This is what I think is best practise, but we all know how talented our network of members are and how they know their customers best and their unique niches and everything and the way that they like to practise. So there's a lot of empowerment in using our precedents. I know most of you have your own little tweaks that you make to them, so you might not want to do a wholesale replacement of the precedents. And we release like a list of the updates so you can cherry pick, yes, I like what you've done to that clause, or No, I don't like that approach.
(27:44):
And you can cherry pick how you update them, and then you can go and just either adopt the wholesale replacements or you can pick and move across and update your documents based on which ones you approve from my list of recommended updates. So it's really empowering. You're not just forced to go through with the update. And what we also try and do in the TT Precedent's Club hot seats is talk about any issues or questions that people have around the updates and the use cases for them as well so that everyone's really empowered. But our goal is just to make sure that you are all busy practitioners. I know you don't have time to keep agonising over this, and as I have to say, I'm spending weeks on this. It's a huge project, but I know that the benefits for all of you will be so powerful in the trickle down economics, as they say, will have such an amplified effect that it's worth it, and we all get the benefit of sharing the collective knowledge and giving that collective feedback.
(28:53):
Everybody gets the benefit even if you weren't in the hot seat or paying attention to the issue at the time, or it hasn't come up on one of your matters collectively, we are all so much better and stronger from working as a team on this. So I'm kind of losing my train of thought there. I just actually just love, I'm so enamoured with our incredible community and how generous everyone is with sharing their updates and sharing the feedback with me and supporting each other. It's just incredible. And especially if you're sole practitioner or in a small firm and you otherwise wouldn't have the time to be resourced to this level, I just think it's incredible. So if you're listening to this and you're like, oh, I have the precedents, but I'm not in the TT Precedents Club, just join the TT Precedents Club again and you will get sent the updates right away.
(29:45):
You can join for as little as one month or tap in and check, and you might actually be at a different phase where you have time to commit to the community again and get the benefits from it. But if not, just join for that one month. At the moment, the price is $149 per month, including GST, so it will just cost you 150 bucks to get the updates. And then you don't have to keep going if you don't want to. And if you obviously are buying the precedence and making that investment from scratch, then you'll get the latest ones. And if you are in the TT precedents club and you have our precedents, but you don't have the updates, then check your email. And if you still can't find it, send us an email at hello at the art of estate planning.com, the U, and we will fix you up and get them sent out to you.
(30:37):
So yeah, that's a little bit behind the scenes. I dunno if that's useful. I'd love to hear actually if you found that interesting about our process and what we go through or just dead boring. I love and hate it, as you can probably tell. It's so important. And I actually do love the drafting. I don't love the updates and the testing and the checking. It is kind of on the mundane side, but my superpower is being consistent and able to do the boring things and following through with something. So I do still love doing it and the joy that it gets for me to send out these updates to all of you. So I know that you are working with absolute gold standard best practise. Cutting edge precedence really does fill my cups, so it's all worth it. Thank you so much to everyone for listening.
(31:26):
Thank you for supporting me at the Art of Estate Planning. It's absolutely a privilege to be able to indulge myself playing around with precedents as part of my day and not doing it into midnight on top of a busy practise, so I don't take that lightly. And yeah, I really appreciate each and every one of you. Thanks so much for listening.
