Sep 16, 2026 · 26 min · 13 segments
Have you ever checked something off your to-do list and assumed it was taken care of for good? When it comes to estate planning, "good enough" may not always be enough. In this conversation, Paul…
Paul GrantHost
Mark HollandHost
Yeah, there's a mentality that if I've done this thing called estate planning and I have documents, that it's good enough.
And if you've been listening to my show for any length of time, then you understand and know that a part of my philosophy is – how long do we have documents and they're still going to accomplish your goals? In other words, is it still good enough from previous times that I've done estate planning or do we need to take a fresh look at estate planning? You know, the other thing I get a lot of comments on, Mark, is from clients is when they come into the office and they talk about how detailed my system is and how involved it is and that I'm very specific.
And after everything is done, people see the whole puzzle being developed and understand the whole process.
But at the beginning, when I talk to them about what the process is going to look like, I may hear comments such as, Boy, that sounds very involved or that's very detailed.
Or here's the one that I really want to start talking about here today is do I really need all of that? So that's the underlying question that I get oftentimes is do I really need all of this work done on the estate plan? So I believe yes.
And in all my years of practicing law and reviewing thousands of estate planning documents, I've only seen a couple of plans that have ever rolled across my desk that were not some type of a templated plan.
And so really we need to kind of flush that thought process out first is that even if you go to many attorneys or even quote unquote people who do a lot of estate plan, What I've seen in my industry is that there's a lot of templated plans.
Now, there's always some aspect of template, right? So even if I do a trust, there's a section in all of my trusts that give trustees power.
Well, we need to give trustees power because they need to know and have the legal authority to operate as the trustee.
So if you don't own a business, have never owned a business, will never own a business, then personally, I don't put business powers in.
So there could be some powers that are added to some clients that are not in other clients.
If you're a trustee and have a trust – you're going to need a bank account, right? We all have bank accounts.
So at every document that I create, every trust I create, there's a banking section.
Well, every one of my trusts, that section is not personalized and it's not strategically created for each individual.
I've never actually had a client come across my firm that said, I have very specific and detailed banking needs.
If you ever encountered a disability in your lifetime, needed assistance during your lifetime, became incapacitated during your lifetime, most documents I have ever reviewed have one or two paragraphs talking about, if I'm ever disabled, then use all of the trust assets for my benefit.
Yeah, there's a mentality that if I've done this thing called estate planning and I have documents, that it's good enough.
And if you've been listening to my show for any length of time, then you understand and know that a part of my philosophy is – how long do we have documents and they're still going to accomplish your goals? In other words, is it still good enough from previous times that I've done estate planning or do we need to take a fresh look at estate planning? You know, the other thing I get a lot of comments on, Mark, is from clients is when they come into the office and they talk about how detailed my system is and how involved it is and that I'm very specific.
And after everything is done, people see the whole puzzle being developed and understand the whole process.
But at the beginning, when I talk to them about what the process is going to look like, I may hear comments such as, Boy, that sounds very involved or that's very detailed.
Or here's the one that I really want to start talking about here today is do I really need all of that? So that's the underlying question that I get oftentimes is do I really need all of this work done on the estate plan? So I believe yes.
And in all my years of practicing law and reviewing thousands of estate planning documents, I've only seen a couple of plans that have ever rolled across my desk that were not some type of a templated plan.
And so really we need to kind of flush that thought process out first is that even if you go to many attorneys or even quote unquote people who do a lot of estate plan, What I've seen in my industry is that there's a lot of templated plans.
Now, there's always some aspect of template, right? So even if I do a trust, there's a section in all of my trusts that give trustees power.
Well, we need to give trustees power because they need to know and have the legal authority to operate as the trustee.
So if you don't own a business, have never owned a business, will never own a business, then personally, I don't put business powers in.
So there could be some powers that are added to some clients that are not in other clients.
If you're a trustee and have a trust – you're going to need a bank account, right? We all have bank accounts.
So at every document that I create, every trust I create, there's a banking section.
Well, every one of my trusts, that section is not personalized and it's not strategically created for each individual.
I've never actually had a client come across my firm that said, I have very specific and detailed banking needs.
If you ever encountered a disability in your lifetime, needed assistance during your lifetime, became incapacitated during your lifetime, most documents I have ever reviewed have one or two paragraphs talking about, if I'm ever disabled, then use all of the trust assets for my benefit.
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