we are here for you.
What makes our firm different is that we were built with the needs of growing families in mind. We understand you are busy; you are growing, you are planning for a life of prosperity, and you value ease, convenience, and efficiency. You are raising children and caring for elderly parents, all while also work hard to build your own nest egg for a lifetime of support.
You want to know you’ve made the best decisions for your family and that your plan will work when your loved ones need it most. You want to make sure your minor children would be raised by the people you choose, never by anyone you wouldn’t want, and that your teens and adult children are properly prepared to care for you and what you leave behind. You want to feel confident that you’ve made the right choices and handled everything so that you aren’t leaving behind a mess when something happens. That is our focus as well.
At August Law, we’ve developed unique systems to give you access to a Personal Family Lawyer® previously only available to the super-wealthy. Now you can have the guidance you need to build and maintain a life of prosperity and wealth even if you’ve already worked with a traditional lawyer or created documents online. We will work to keep your family out of court and out of conflict, which is the greatest risk to the people you love and all you have created.
We encourage communication
We encourage communication with our clients. In fact, we’ve thrown out the time clocks.
Everything we do is billed on a flat-fee basis agreed to in advance, so there are never any surprises.
If you need to talk to us, please schedule a call.
We want to make the very best use of your time and don’t want us getting caught up in “phone tag”.
Transferring Your Family Wealth
We believe your financial wealth is only a small part of your overall “Family Wealth” which is made up of your far more valuable intellectual, spiritual, and human assets. These assets are what make you who you are and sum up what’s most important to you. They are also most often lost upon incapacity or death.
Most estate plans only focus on the transfer of your financial wealth to the next generation. Most people have such great intentions of passing on the intangible, but very few ever get around to it. It’s just not a priority until it’s too late.
How much do you know about your grandparents’ values or their most prized personal possessions? How did they feel about you? What did they learn during their lifetime? Like most people, you may know very little about the answers to these questions.
That’s why we at August Law build the capture and passage of these most valuable assets into every estate plan we create. Not only will we help you pass on your money, but also your values, your insights, your stories, and your experiences—the truly valuable assets your loved ones care about the most.
We’ve developed a tool for that. Let’s talk further about the tool we have developed that allows us to capture and pass on your whole family wealth, including your intellectual, spiritual and human assets when you come in for your Family Wealth Planning Session.
Finance Your Foundation for Success
If you think this all sounds expensive, you are right… and you’re wrong. We can guarantee you that if you qualify to meet with a Personal Family Lawyer®, planning is substantially less costly than it would be for your family if you became incapacitated or die with a plan that doesn’t work or, even worse, no plan at all.
Any family who wants to put into place this type of planning for their loved ones can do so. We’ve made creative financing available to our clients because we know this planning is the foundation for a life of success.
planning for the wellbeing
of your children
At August Law, one of our areas of greatest expertise is in planning for the well-being and care of your children. As a parent of minor children or those with special needs, your children are counting on you to plan for their well-being. Your estate plan must begin with ensuring your children will always be taken care of by the people you want, in the way you want, no matter what happens.
A will alone does not ensure the care of your kids if the unthinkable happens to you. Without advance legal planning for the care of your children, if the unthinkable happens to you, here’s what could happen:
- Your children could be placed into the care of Child Protective Services. Yes, even if you have a will or living trust. It would very likely only be temporary, but you never want your children in the arms of strangers—not even for a minute!
- Your children could be put into the custody and care of someone you would never want; like that one family member who has good intentions, but you’d never want to raise your kids.
- A judge who doesn’t know you, or your family, will decide who will raise your kids, even if it’s the last person you would ever want.
- Your family could get into a long, drawn-out custody fight or there could be a challenge to the guardians you have designated.
- Up to 5% of the value of your assets could be lost to court costs and other unnecessary fees through the probate process, a court process that can tie up your assets for years and deprive your kids of the resources they need to live comfortably.
- When your kids turn 18, they get a check for whatever assets are left. There are unscrupulous people out there who make it their business to look at the public records to find out when 18-year-olds are getting that inheritance check.
Most estate planning attorneys do not address these issues and do not plan from a parent’s perspective. And while yes, these things scare us too, that is exactly why we offer a Kids Protection Plan® with every estate plan for families with young children.
WHAT IS A KIDS PROTECTION PLAN®?
A Kids Protection Plan® is a set of instructions, legal documents and even an ID card for your wallet, which you need to have if you have kids at home who count on you for their well-being and care.
If you are in an accident, your Kids Protection Plan® will make sure your children are never taken into the custody of Child Protective Services, strangers or the care of anyone you wouldn’t want because the authorities don’t have clear instructions from you. And your Kids Protection Plan® will ensure your children are raised by people you choose, not someone chosen by a Judge who doesn’t know you.
