you’ll become a much better estate planner, your clients will get significantly better estate plans, fewer clients will resist signing the documents you suggest that they sign, and you’ll be a much more trusted and valued advisor.
I view a frank and honest keep-or-sell discussion involving the entire family concerning the family business as perhaps the most important conversation that too few families in business ever have. Why is that? I view such a discussion as a means of gauging the family...
What follows are the first two paragraphs of my ethical will:
I begin this document, which is my Ethical Will, with a sentence-In the Name of God, Amen-that was customarily used to begin all last wills and testaments before the practice ended a little more than a century ago. As an aside, at one time there was a legal difference between a will, which covered lands, and a testament, which covered personal property, but this distinction, which required people to have to execute two separate documents to transmit their belongings at death, was eliminated a few centuries ago when the two separate documents were combined under the name last will and testament, so now you know. But I digress, which is going to happen several times during my Ethical Will as it’s just a part of my personality, so you just as soon be ready for diversions.
You may find it odd that a lawyer who was trained to write wills and trusts would use the opening line from a historical last will and testament in his Ethical Will, which doesn’t transmit any property at all. First of all, I want to make it clear that this Ethical Will is not to be construed in any way to distribute any property that I could leave by will or any other mode of transfer. Moreover, my Ethical Will should not be construed as interpreting, amending, modifying or terminating any testamentary arrangements that I’ve made elsewhere to transmit property. However, with the legal warranty out of the way, that still doesn’t explain the reason for my use of the opening phrase.