Tara (00:50):
Thank you so much for joining me for episode 58. It's Tara Lucke, your host as always, and in today's episode I want to talk about providing will summaries.
(01:05):
I know this is such a specific topic, maybe it's too specific, but it comes up for me quite frequently where I get asked this question and I surprise, surprise do have a strong opinion about it. So I thought why not dedicate an entire episode to this topic and it's about providing will's summaries to clients when you're providing the draught estate planning documents for them to review. As you know at the art of Estate Planning, we provide testamentary trust and estate planning precedent packages for lawyers to use with their clients. And our most popular precedent package is called the works package and it is a bundle of precedents that includes obviously testamentary trust will precedents, but also everything else for a practitioner to hit the ground running when they start offering testamentary trusts. So it includes the will precedents, it also includes a basic will precedent, which is in the same style and has the same boilerplates and powers as in the testamentary trust will precedent.
(02:21):
So you can move all of your wills over to the new style, but it also includes cover letters with explanations about the documents of risk wording, everything that you sort of need to explain the testamentary trust will generally we include instruction sheets, meeting agenda templates to help you prepare for testamentary trust strategy meetings and everything you need to discuss and give advice on and obtain instructions on in relation to testamentary trusts, file note templates so that you are documenting all the advice given and the decisions made by the test data about the testamentary trust, but in a way that you are not sitting there reinventing the wheel and dictating out a 90 minute meeting. We've got a family trust review checklist, estate planning matter, workflow checklist, reviewer checklists for the person if you are sort of just checking that you've covered all the risk issues or one person has drafted the precedent and then another lawyer is reviewing and signing off, we've got so much in there, white labelled flyers to give to clients and rebrand.
(03:40):
It's really a very comprehensive bundle of precedence so that you can hit the ground riding with all of the infrastructure you need surrounding the actual testamentary trust will, but it does not include a will summary. So what I'm talking about there is clause one does this, clause two says this in clause three, that type of document when I was working at a law firm, McCullough Robertson and also at Eloy and I think even View Legal, we did it, we did use to offer those templates and it was sort of in a table format where it was like clause in the left hand table and then in the right hand table a summary and it was part of the precedent suite and I have very deliberately not included it in our precedent packages. I don't even have one available and I get asked quite frequently, why not?
(04:41):
And will I put one together and the answer is no. So I have a strong opinion why. Firstly, I feel like one of the challenges we have with testamentary trust wills that is inherent in the nature of the document is their complexity and they're already quite long. I actually in episode 57, if you listen to last week's episode, you'll see I discussed what you need to include in a testamentary trust will precedent. And in that episode I discuss at length why they need to be so long and all the extensive powers. So I feel like we're already at risk of overwhelming our client. So everything that I do when I'm preparing our testamentary trust resources, I'm trying to balance on this delicate tight rope of including everything that we need from a legal perspective so that we are complying with best practise, setting up enough flexibility and protection for our beneficiaries and controllers for long-term wealth accumulation vehicles, but also trying to massage that client experience into one that they are empowered, the client understands and has buy-in to their estate plan and that ultimately they have a really positive experience.
(06:10):
So they get an estate plan that is customised for them, achieves their objectives and is one that they actually sign and implement and it gives them peace of mind. So we have a very tricky job in front of us. So my recommendation is we should be modernising our client experience away from all this paperwork and summaries and letters and all the lengthy written text. I dunno about you even as a lawyer myself who is used to reading long documents, I feel like my attention span is getting weaker and weaker the more time I spend on social media and the older I get. And I think it's fair to say for most people we can't even watch a 30 second Instagram video. I was going to say TikTok, I'm not even on TikTok, but you know what I mean. Our attention span is so short. So I feel like the value add from a will summary is really low because it's just another document and when you think about it from the client's perspective, they are looking at their email, I'm assuming you are emailing the draught documents and everything that goes with them and there's already going to be a lot of attachments to that email and that will summary is just another attachment with long bulky words in it.
(07:45):
Even if it's on the two pages, it's still dense. So I think it's really helpful if we can try to appeal to our clients' different learning styles, shake things up a bit and try and present information in different ways so that they have a better chance of understanding. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we shouldn't provide a summary at all, but I don't think a written dense word-based summary is going to achieve our objectives in the best possible way. So some other ways that I think we can communicate that option using diagrams and flow charts. So I have another podcast episode about flow charts. It's episode 52 about how we can rethink the estate planning meeting about communicating, and in that one I talk about using diagrams, but I'm a huge fan of a visual estate planning flow chart where we set up this test data has died, there's a little picture of them, they've got a cross through them, we've got our testamentary trust that we're creating in the graphic there is an arrow showing which assets are moving from the test data into the testamentary trust.
(09:15):
We can see who's controlling that testamentary trust, who's benefiting from it. We have another page to that diagram perhaps if we're acting for a couple where we show what happens if they've both died or if different events and actions happen depending on different people dying, we can set that out. I think that is so helpful. Firstly, I think it's great for you as the lawyer to create that and have it on your file because a picture tells a thousand words. You can get up to speed so quickly every time you pick up the file, but it also actually makes you really think about your will drafting your specific gifts, who owns which assets, what is the ownership structure for any joint assets? Are we dealing with joint tenants, tenants in common? Are assets going into the testamentary trust or outside of the testamentary trust? Do we need to deal with foreign persons or super proceeds?
(10:15):
And it just really turns your mind to the practical what's going to happen when we're administering this estate. So I love an estate planning flow chart. I think it's also really helpful for the clients. Something visual just engages their brain in a different way. Whenever I do it, I also print it out and have it in the meeting for them to draw on or put it on the virtual whiteboard. If we're doing a virtual meeting, I just think it's a really complimentary way to help them navigate the will and see big picture in a single page what is going to happen. And so in relation to those flow chart diagrams, our works precedents package does actually include those estate planning flow chart, also group structured diagrams and family tree diagram templates so you have got access to those templates to easily produce them as part of your precedent package.
(11:17):
So I'm a huge fan. I think every matter should have one. If you have ever come to a TT precedent's club hot seat and have seen us work through a client's strategy for testamentary trust, you'll see that I put those together and create them for the factual scenario so that we can actually talk through together as a group in the TT precedents club where things are going to go present alternates. And so you can see visually what the end outcome is going to be. Another option that you might do instead of the diagrams or in addition to the diagrams is a video and I am a huge fan of a quick personalised casual video. You might record it in Loom or some kind of other software where you just are like, oh, hi Tara, I'm so excited to send through your draught estate planning documents, what I want you to do firstly is review them in this order, check out the will, then the power of attorney. You might like to refer to the diagram template to get the big picture first and with relation to the will, it is a lengthy document. Don't get too overwhelmed by that. We can go through it together in our meeting. What I want you to do is review the first four pages of that. You'll see clauses one to five, the substantive part of your will. The rest is the kind of thing that we want the accountant to focus on. You just need to check everyone's names are correct and then you'll see this is who we've appointed as the executors guardians. And then I'd talk them through the first four clauses and then explain. I'll take you to the testament trust summary. Remember, we're setting up the test entry trust.
(13:08):
They're going to operate this way. It might be a five minute video casual, just something that they can hear to help them navigate the bulk of the documents but feel reassured and get confidence in that they are able to read and understand. This will. I think one of the big challenges we have for people who are not used to looking at wills all the time, which to be quite frank will be nearly all our clients because for a lot of them, this is the first time they're preparing a will or they may only be preparing a will after a huge gap between their last will. If their last will was a basic will, then the jump scare from the basic will expectation to the testamentary trust could be a lot for them to manage. So we really want to avoid the client feeling overwhelmed and shutting down and withdrawing from the process.
(14:09):
I guess I'm getting on a little bit of a tangent, but sometimes in the TT precedents club, a new member will say to us, look, I've sent out the draughts and the client is just ghosting me or they've told me it's too complicated, it's not what they want and they don't want to sign it and they're just giving me all this negative feedback. And when we sort of start making inquiries about how the matter's unfolded, what is happening is the client. It's not that the document doesn't meet the client's needs or isn't suitable, but the client is overwhelmed and their gut reaction when they're overwhelmed, when they feel like they're out of their depth or embarrassed that they are confused is to just shut down and avoid it and put it in the too hard basket and stick their head in the sand and ignore it.
(15:06):
And so we really want to empower the client to feel like they're in control. They understand, yes, it's complicated, but they have confidence in you and the process and they understand. A beautiful analogy is a mortgage like how many Australians have a mortgage? And if you've been through that process lately, I remortgaged our debt last year and the amount of paperwork, the length of those mortgage documents, I don't know and understand everything in those documents. But I trust our broker. I have a vague understanding of how it works. I kind of have just general trust in the system and I trust our solicitor when we did the conveyance. It's the same with a testamentary trust. You don't have to know every single word, but if you are set up and empowered in a way that you can understand the key points, then I think the client will have a much better user experience and is much more likely to go through to the end, sign up their documents and feel that peace of mind and contentment, which is our ultimate goal, that their objectives are achieved.
(16:24):
So that's why I'm a fan of coming at it from a different perspective. No more dense written documents. We're using diagrams. We're using videos. You might even if you don't want to be doing personalised videos, I totally get that. If you're not always on screen, I'm literally wearing my yoga clothes. I'm about to do a workout after I record this podcast. If you're not always wanting to be just popping out and doing quick videos for clients, that's totally cool. You might sit down and dedicate some time to recording some prerecorded general generalised videos for clients and you might break it down into a generic video for couples with young kids, a generic video for baby boomers with adult children who are setting up a trust per child. A couple of key demographics where you can generally talk about the framework of the will. You're going to keep it more general, but it will still help the client navigate what does this testamentary trust will look like and what are the key parts for me to identify and check is correct?
(17:38):
And then maybe that's what you do instead of the customised video. There's no rules about this. You can be as creative as you like. You might even do animation, engage an animation company to do a little animation video or something that you think reflects your brand more appropriately. So I do just want to spark that idea. Now I actually have some more points on this. Can you believe it? I'm getting so able to talk so much on this topic, but before we do, I would just like to have us all listen from one of our beautiful clients, Meredith.
Meredith (18:17):
Hi, I'm Meredith from Ruby Legal. I work at a general practise and we do a lot of estate planning. Before I started using the art of estate planning precedents, I sort of felt lost with the precedent we were using, especially for testamentary trusts as well as the precedent clients and other professionals found a bit confusing that we had since we've changed over to using the testamentary trust precedents from the art of estate planning, our services to our clients were a lot clearer, a lot more profitable and a lot more efficient. I would say we halved the time it was taking for us to do a testamentary trust drafting and the clients we have understand and like the document we use to draught their wills. So it's been a great experience for us and I would highly recommend it.
Tara (19:11):
A couple more points just to round out this reason why I don't think a will summary in a written form is necessary. Firstly, I just think it eats into your profit margin if it's going to be of any use. You have to sit there and manually amend it to customise it to the client and then cross-reference it to the will. And that takes time. It's hard to automate and I think it eats into the time that you're spending on the document creating greater risk for error. Let's think about it. If that will summary is actually not correct because you've forgotten to add in a clause or you've clause referencing is wrong, it's actually going to do more harm than good because it will undermine the client's confidence in the documents. And if it's not customised, then it's almost kind of meaningless. It's just more, it's like the same language or same clauses but just written in another way more dense words for clients to read.
(20:20):
So I just think it doesn't add anything and creates more risk for you to get it wrong and is a time drain. Also with the diagrams, I should have said this before, I really think you should be preparing those anyway for yourself internally as part of your file nodes and to help you stress test that the plan achieves their objectives. So if you're preparing them for yourself, might as well make them available to the client and leverage those documents because I think they're way more powerful than you might suspect. The other thing that I want to throw out there is your will should already be in plain English language. Now, it's not possible for it to be completely plain English and modern Gen Z language or anything like that, but it should be easy enough for clients and their advisors to read and wrap their head around.
(21:21):
Not every clause I do admit there will be clauses that they will read and go, I don't understand when this will be used or what some of these technical terms mean, but they should be able to navigate the first part of the will that deals with executives, guardians specific gifts, personal belongings, and the residual estate. And they should be able to check their names are correct, read and understand that it should align with their expectation of a basic will. And then we can say, look, in this part of the document, it is the testamentary trust terms. Just like if you've got a family trust or a self-managed super fund, we need a deed for those. It's the same thing that we need for the testamentary trust and we've just popped it at the back of the will. If it is in plain English, then you probably don't need that summary because you're just repeating the same thing that they've already been able to read and understand.
(22:20):
So look, if you use will summaries, I'm not necessarily saying stop using it unless you hate using it and feel like you don't like it, then this is your permission to let that document go. There is no requirement to do it with your insurer. There's no requirement under the succession or wills legislation in your state. So if you don't like it and you agree that it doesn't really add a lot, let it go. Channel the frozen song and let it go. If you really like the summary and you think it is working for your clients, then by all means keep it. Absolutely. But if you are making a change to your precedents, migrating over to the Art of Estate planning precedent, bundles and wondering why that isn't there, I would really encourage you to lean into trying out those diagrams instead. If you love the idea, try out the videos.
(23:19):
I think the impact of those is incredible. And just experiment. See what kind of feedback you get, what you see clients using or not using, what they kind of tell you in the meeting, or I didn't read that or I have seen this. If you use Loom, I think you can even see if they've watched the video and how long and if they made it to the end, all of that. So just experiment. There's no right or wrong. I'm a huge advocate for us trying new things, borrowing strategies from other industries to try and maximise the customer experience. And ultimately, at the end of the day, our goal is to leave our clients empowered, informed, and feeling confident that their legacy and peace of mind goals have been achieved. So whichever way we can do that, it doesn't really matter. So thanks for listening to my rant.
(24:17):
I can't believe it took me this long. I had this many amount of things to say. If you violently disagree with me, I'm totally open to hearing that as well. You are very welcome to post about it in the Art of Estate Planning Facebook group, and we can have the conversation and dialogue. This is just my opinion, and we all have different clients who from different demographics and our ideal client or customer avatars are all different. So you might have a client avatar who loves it, maybe you work a lot with engineers and they really want to see the fine print and the written summary, in which case take everything I've said with a grain of salt. Alternatively, if you work with a lot of doctors and they are not reading anything, you send them, maybe the diagram pictures is exactly what they need. They can see it in two pages, what's going to happen and sign off on it.
(25:17):
So you know your client best, you know how you like to work. And ultimately at the end of the day, all I'm trying to do is give us all permission to try different things and experiment about what's going to maximise that customer experience with testamentary trust. Thank you so much for listening. I'm really thrilled you've joined me today and I look forward to hearing any feedback and I will talk to you again next week. Thanks so much.
