My chapter, The Estate Planning Team (about the importance of leadership, communication and the cooperation of ALL your trusted professionals when creating at estate plan) is just one of the many informative chapters in this book about how to best protect your assets, your estate, and your family.  The members of the Wealth Counsel organization are the best of the best, and I am so pleased to be able to offer this book of their collective wisdom. 

But don’t take my word for it, check it out for yourself! If you would like your own copy please call our office, or click here.

The post A Book You Won’t Want to Miss… appeared first on Desert Law Group | Kimberly T. Lee.

If you’re like me, you probably have “To Do” lists filled with tasks like ‘pay the bills’ or ‘wash the car’, but how many of those lists evoke a feeling of heavy obligation rather than pleasant anticipation? If you were to take your list of “Things to Do” and add onto the end of it “Before I Die,” would that change what you put on your list or their priority?

The movie “The Bucket List” addresses this question. How would having such a list change the way we live our lives?

If you don’t have your own list of “Things To Do Before I Die” a recent series of books seeks to help you make one. The series includes such books as “1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die,” “1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die” and the book recently reviewed in the New York Times by William Grimes “1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die.”

In a world where it’s easy to get caught up in the demands of our daily life, a “bucket list” of things to do before you die can provide you with perspective, and keep you focused on what’s really important in your life. Make your own “To Do” list one that will bring you a sense of pleasant anticipation at the dawn of each day, and of happy contentment when you turn the final page.

The post Redefining the “To Do” List appeared first on Desert Law Group | Kimberly T. Lee.

“So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”

(Sonnet XVIII by William Shakespeare, b. Apr. 23, 1564, d. Apr. 23, 1616)

People do some strange things with their Last Wills and Testaments, and Shakespeare was no exception. One item in William Shakespeare’s will, for example, is often cited as being a curious one; “I give unto my wife my second best bed with the furniture.” Why the second best bed? One might wonder if Shakespeare was having some fun at his wife’s expense. Perhaps the author of such comedies as The Taming of the Shrew and Much Ado About Nothing was eccentrically trying to interject some comedy into the last document he ever wrote?

With a little research we discover that giving the “second best bed” to his wife was actually a perfectly natural bequest in 1616, and even more interestingly, Shakespeare did not, in fact, write his own Will. This is not to imply that the Will is not authentic, but research suggests that even Shakespeare, arguably the most brilliant writer of all time—not to mention his famous quote, “first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers”—actually hired a lawyer to help him write his Will and dispose of his property. 

Creating a valid Will and estate plan is even more complicated now than it was in the 1600s, and getting the advice of a competent attorney is even more essential. If your estate planning documents are incomplete or unclear it can result in costly court delays and legal fees, not to mention heated fights between family members that can leave lasting scars.

Even Shakespeare wasn’t afraid to ask his lawyer for help. When the time comes to prepare your estate plan, follow Shakespeare’s example and let us worry about the legal details, leaving you free to consider the more important questions such as. . . To whom will you give your second best bed?

The post Estate Planning Advice From Shakespeare appeared first on Desert Law Group | Kimberly T. Lee.