The Life Circle - Three Levels of Practice

Level 1 • Level 2 • Level 3

At Chasen & Associates, PA, we see estate planning as the interrelationship of vision and legal documents. What we believe sets us apart is the degree of personal vision we incorporate in our clients' documents.

As generally practiced, what passes for estate planning generally consists of gathering some basic information about assets and personal data, and incorporating it into forms. The basic equation is that people who have certain assets and certain relationships, should have certain documents that say certain things. Once the attorney knows what assets and relationships a person has, he or she will know what documents to produce. And those documents will hopefully reflect that attorney's best guess about what should be done in the future. But the documents will generally reflect the drafter's vision of what the future should be, with little individual input. This is a very basic level of practice, and unfortunately is the one that most clients experience (which may explain the public's dissatisfaction with attorneys, but that's a conversation for another day).

When people visit an attorney to discuss an estate plan, they expect to talk about things like money, property, retirement plans, investments, and insurance. Indeed, if they have had any prior experience preparing an estate plan, they may think that this is all that will be discussed. Their prior experience may also tell them that this conversation will be disconnected and analytical, with only cursory contact between client and professional, and the advisor's use of large and (to the client) often incomprehensible terms. Whether in the long term, documents based upon these client possessions truly reflect a client's intentions, is largely left to chance. More often than not, from the advisor's side, the client's name and those of his or her family members, together with certain planning choices, are simply put into a word processing system, and the desired documents are thereafter produced. From the client's side, this is generally accompanied by immense blind faith that the professional is doing what the client wants, and that when these papers are needed, they'll actually get the job done the way that the client intends. A consequence is that the client may view the experience with the same enthusiasm and excitement that accompanies an appointment for root canal, an IRS audit, or a visit to a particularly unpleasant family member.

It makes sense that these are the subjects discussed, and in a very cursory way, it may seem that they are enough. After all, documents will be prepared, and affairs will be wound up. So these things are important, and for some people, this type of cerebral relationship - what might be called a "level 1 relationship" - is adequate.

At Chasen and Associates, however, the conversation is invariably a larger one. We recognize that each of our clients is far more than their material wealth. We believe that looking at the whole client - his or her heritage, family, and community - are essential to our ability to provide sound, personal advice. So we build upon the analytical basis that most attorneys work with by adding a very significant additional component: the heart.

We believe that each of our clients has far more to pass along than simply what they have accumulated. We believe that our clients' pasts are every bit as important as the present plans that they have for moving around their various pieces of property in the event of disability or death. So we take the time to get to know our clients, to learn about their history, their ancestors, their traditions and heirlooms. We take the time to learn about our client's identity, about the connection that they feel to their family, and the beliefs, and values that may be shared. We take the time to understand the relationship that our clients have with their community, their volunteer services, close friendships, work relationships, philanthropy or other affiliations that they may enjoy. We believe that without these things, we cannot begin to advise our clients effectively on their planning. And only with this information can we create documents for our clients that more closely reflect their individual intentions and dreams. This is client relationship at another level - one we can call "level 2."

The way that we learn about our clients' values and plans are through the stories that they tell us about their lives. Stories that reflect and give meaning to their past, that demonstrate their connection to spirit, or their spiritual relationship, show the learning that they have amassed over their lives, and the stewardship with which they interact with the people and cherished heirlooms that they have in their lives. These stories give us the basis with which to understand the client as a complete and multifaceted individual, and not simply a collection of accumulated assets. So we ask our clients to share their stories with us.

With some of our clients, our work expands to yet another level. At this level 3, we help a client explore his or her vision. At this point, the documents are clearly secondary - if there are legal documents prepared at all, they exist solely to help the client implement a vision that he or she has articulated. And that vision will be the result of a careful exploration of that client's intentions and dreams for the rest of his or her life. In that context, we at Chasen & Associates are no longer serving simply as attorneys, but as "life architects" if you will - designers and contractors to help plan and create a reality that was, at its inception, a client's vision described to us.

As discussed, we can see these different types of relationships as existing on 3 different levels. The Life Circle is a graphic that represents the whole of a Chasen & Associates client, and which can be used to illustrates the 3 different levels at which we work --

LEVEL 1, in which the relationship is entirely head based and results in very impersonal documents -- notice how much of the Life Circle, the whole of a person, is omitted.

at the next level, LEVEL 2, the heart and the past are both added to result in documents more clearly reflecting a client,

and finally, LEVEL 3, in which we truly get to the heart of a client’s dreams and intentions, and whatever documents result are simply a reflection of what those dreams and intentions demand.

None of these levels have hard and fast boundaries. This is a continuum, and we will work with our clients for the most part wherever we find them. Having said that, we believe that there are many advisors willing to work with clients simply in an exclusively analytical and impersonal Level 1 style of practice. So if that is a client’s firm intention, then unless other circumstances exist, we are more likely than not to refer that client to other counsel.