Who’s the Client?
Joseph and Janet are siblings who contacted me recently about amending their mother’s trust. Whenever I get a call like this, I wonder what is going on. It’s fine for an adult child to call an attorney,arrange for an appointment and even transport an elderly parent to my office. But we have an important concept in estate planning called: “who’s the client?” It’s the elder, not the rest of the family. We meet first alone with the elderly client. The reason is that we have to make surean elderly client is capable of stating, in their own plain words, what they are trying to do with their...
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