Some Thoughts on the Estate Planning Profession

ChristopherP. Cline (Holland & Knight, Portland, Oregon) has published hisarticle, “TheFault, Dear Brutus, Is Not in Our Stars, But in Ourselves.” Some Thoughts onthe Estate Planning Profession, in the Summer 2007 33 ACTEC J. 34 (2007).

Here is the conclusion:

Our professional lives, never easy,seem to have gotten a lot more troublesome lately, leaving us with threeoptions: just deal with it, quit practice, or find a new way to go about ourwork. The latter course, if taken withthe client’s personal, rather than tax planning, needs as a signpost, has thepotential to be the most satisfying. Byhelping the client with the hard question of how to leave a family orphilanthropic legacy, the complexities described above, as well as others, becomemore manageable because they no longer are the primary focus of thelawyer-client relationship. And,paradoxically, we may find that the tax planning is more effective because itis now tied to goals that are important to the client.