For the past 10 years, I have gone to Lake Placid, New York to play in a Lacrosse tournament. The first 6 years I went to the tournament I would play on random local teams and our teams would never go very far in the tournament. I always has a good time but there was always something missing (besides the fact that we never won the tournament).
However, the past 4 years my college teammates decided to put together a team ( I went to Syracuse University). The alumni from Cornell had been doing this for years and they consistently won the tournament. The first 2 years we played together we lost in the championship game to the Cornell Alumni (known as the "Rusty Red"). However, the last 2 years we have won the tournament (our team name is the "Burnt Orange").
I want to share some of my personal reflections about the tournament since I have made this change of playing with my former teammates. Since I am now an estate planning attorney, I believe I can draw some connections between what I have experienced at the peaks of Lake Placid and my estate planning practice.
First and foremost, I think the culture and tradition of playing at Syracuse University adds immediate value to the quality of the team and the quality of the experience at Lake Placid. Since we are familiar with the Syracuse system as well as each other's playing styles we have a much stronger team than most and the positive results are evident in the final scores of the games.
I believe a similar connection can be drawn to estate plans that are prepared for my clients. We use a consistent process and system to develop our clients' estate plans. Everyone essentially goes through the same steps (although there are many different variations depending on a client's personal situation, the process each client goes through is the same). Since the clients' are familiar with the process they feel comfortable that they actually understand their plan. Just like playing under the same system giving our team an edge on the playing field, our lawfirm's consistent system gives our clients' confidence in creating a strong plan for their family. I think a lot of the negative experience with estate planning comes from the clients' lack of understanding of how their plan works.
The second important connection is that having a relationship with my teammates gives me an edge on the playing field since I know what to do and where my teammates are supposed to be at different stages of the game. Similarly, I believe having a relationship with my clients will give our firm (and our clients) an edge in creating a successful plans with our clients. I believe that the members of my law firm and my clients are teammates together with one common goal - creating a plan that works for our clients and their families. Since the success of my clients' plan will occur at some date in the future then I think it is essential that we maintain a good relationship with our clients. That is why we communicate with our clients at least annually to make sure we are up to date with any changes in the family. In turn, we provide our clients with updates in the law. If we maintain a good relationship with our clients over a number of years, then I believe the chances of a successful plan goes up dramatically.
I believe that the biggest difference in the way InSight Law works with their clients compared to the traditional estate planning process is that we commit to a formal maintenance and education program for our clients at the start of the planning process. Our clients all know to expect that the most important step in our process is the ongoing relationship that our law firm team has with your family.
These are my reflections about this years' Lake Placid lacrosse tournament. Go Cuse!
