SPEAKER 01 : 0:04

Welcome to Mobile Estate Planning with your host, Michael Bailey. Over a decade ago, attorney Michael Bailey turned his attention to estate law after he recognized the unacceptable number of adults without proper end of life planning. Michael recognizes that many of his clients have difficulty finding the time for making a proper estate plan. That’s why he became the Mobile Estate Planner. He will go to wherever you are to assist you with your estate planning, including writing wills, trusts, and giving you the information you need to avoid probate. Now, ATX Ask the Experts presents Mobile Estate Planning with your host, Michael Bailey.

SPEAKER 02 : 0:56

All right, good afternoon. Welcome to Mobile Estate Planning with Michael Bailey here on 560 KLZ AM. So we can do something besides just leave your family alone. So you are listening to 560 AM, possibly 100.7 FM. I guess it’s also possible that you are listening on the KLZ 560 radio app. And if you are, I’m more than happy to have… uh you know you be there and have you be able to you know listen to and hear my show because i always appreciate my listeners i always appreciate people who do call and i’m just happy to have the chance to be here and talk about estate planning i mean someone yesterday was asked me what i do for a living and i said well i’m an estate planning attorney and they’re like oh what does that mean so i talked about writing wills and trusts and they’re like so is it fun and exciting and i just started laughing i’m like no it is if what i do is important and necessary fun and exciting really aren’t the right words to describe what i do i mean then again i i wonder sometimes about what what professions might be considered fun and exciting um I mean, I think Mr. Luke has a fun and exciting job because he gets to have all of us go out on the air. And if he doesn’t do his job, there’s just dead air. It sounds like this. And that just isn’t what we’re looking for. You know, if if you want to listen to dead air, you can turn off the radio. But, you know, dead air on the radio may not work so well. So perhaps Mr. Luke has a fun and exciting job. But Mr. Luke might not think that his job is always fun and exciting. Would that be correct, Mr. Luke? Sometimes it is. Sometimes it is not. Yes. Depends on the day. Kind of work, right?

SPEAKER 01 : 2:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER 02 : 2:42

Work in general. Sometimes fun, sometimes not. But it’s okay. So the other day, on Monday, actually. That is another day. Cool. Look at that. So on Monday, we had planned to go. My daughter had a volleyball tournament over the weekend, which they did okay on Saturday. Did really well on Sunday, which is good. And you’re like, hey, we’re showing improvement in the first tournament of the tournament season. That’s good. but Monday she was supposed to have a practice, and she was quite tired on Monday, so she decided she didn’t want to go. Well, we needed to go to the store to pick up a couple of things because my wife had used the last pound of frozen hamburger we had, and we’re like, well… If we want to cook something else in the future, then we should probably have some more of the little packages of frozen hamburger just in case. And so that we’re not like, oh, hey, we need hamburger. Let’s run off to the store right now. Run, run, run, run, run. Get it. Run, run, run, run back. And, you know, spend 15, 20, 30 minutes trying to get to the store. So we were planning ahead and had and you needed a little bit of. So we’re and just because about five, 10 minutes away from where my daughter has volleyball practice, there is a Costco store. So we’re like, well, we can drop her off at volleyball practice. We’ll go to the Costco. We’ll pick up what we need. We can come back, pick her up, and practice the last two hours. And it’s about a half an hour away from our house, so we could drive out. I’m like, well, we could drive out there, and then we could drive back, and then we could drive out there and have like 45 minutes at home, or we could go to the store. So that was our big plan for Monday was to go to the store in the evening together. And then our daughter decided she didn’t want to go because she was tired. And our response is, well, you have practice on Tuesday and on Thursday. Friday, she has a there’s a basketball game that she’s playing in the pep band for because she still plays. Marching band season is over, but she still plays in the pep band. And then this weekend, she has another volleyball tournament. So we’re like, yeah, this is, you know, taking Monday off seems like an OK thing. But we still needed to buy the hamburger. And so we went off to the store and my 12-year-old, I was like, hey, how’s homework going? He’s like, oh, I’m trying to do this. I have to finish up this math quiz, but I’m kind of falling asleep. So I don’t know how I’m doing. I’m like, why don’t you come with us to the store? Costco has a decent snack bar so we can get him a piece of pizza, which is one of his favorite things. It’s a piece of pizza from Costco. And they also have ice cream and, you know, ice cream sundaes where you can put chocolate or strawberry or whatever in it. We enticed him, we bribed him, not entice, bribe, whichever, with coming to the store with us so that he could get some pizza and some ice cream. Also, he could tell us what snacks he wanted and things like that. So we went, we got pizza and ice cream for him, came home, but as we were, I’m sorry, we came home after the part of the story I was going to tell later. But as we were eating the pizza, sitting there in the food court, some guy walked by and he saw that we had purchased ground beef. And he paused and he said, hey, so I have a friend who has a farm up in the Greeley area and he sells, you know, ground beef. And, you know, when they have the cows, they’ll sell the beef. and he gave us the website. He’s like, you know, you could go there. You can do that. We’re like, Hey, cool. Thank you so much. We really appreciate that. And we thought about it and we’re like, yeah, we’ve, I mean, my wife has always talked about wanting to buy part of a cow and, you know, have it just in the freezer and available because, you know, that fresh meat might be better and, you know, just more available and might even be cheaper. And so she was pretty excited about it. But we were also talking about how it’s great to have that as an option, but we ran out of ground beef that day. And if we’d needed two pounds of ground beef instead of the one pound we had, we would have been in trouble. And although it’s great to go on to a website and order the ground beef, I don’t think they had in the next 30 to 45 minute delivery from Greeley to where we live in Thornton. So there was kind of going to be a problem there of access. Now, I mean, Costco, the only option they had for ground beef was their organic ground beef. And I’m not sure that, I’m not entirely sure what the difference between organic ground beef and non-organic ground beef is. I mean, maybe there’s less of the chemicals that are, you know, used or, you know, maybe there’s less antibiotics given to the cows or maybe they’re, are stationed in a field that is far away from a farmer who might spray chemicals on their hay that they would then feed the cows. I’m not 100% sure on what makes ground beef organic versus non-organic. But that was the option they had at Costco, so that’s what we bought. And we were talking about that. We’re like, you know, there’s still a place for a Costco where we’re like, okay, we ran out of beef now. We might need some tomorrow or the next day. We didn’t because we made different things for dinner. But still, it’s, you know, my 12-year-old is a beef kind of guy. If he could have a hamburger for lunch and dinner and every single day, he probably would. You know, he likes his hamburgers. Um, we kind of have to force the issue of, no, let’s see, maybe if we can have a vegetable stir fry today or something like that, or we’ll make a chicken pasta dish, you know, just so that you can vary it up and have different things, but he would prefer a hamburger every single day. But we were talking, we were talking about how, even if the, we got the greatest beef ever from a farmer up in Greeley area, what we needed at that moment was. To be able to walk into a store, get the food and a piece of pizza that may have happened to occur, but then we could go home. So there is a place for both things. And sometimes access to a product or access to a service is very important and what is necessary and needs to be done. So in that access and in that part of what we do, it becomes part of the equation. And it really becomes part of the equation for me as an estate planning attorney. So you are listening to Mobile Estate Planning with Michael Bailey here on KLZ 560 AM, also heard on 100.7 FM or the KLZ 560 radio app. The phone number to talk to me on the air is 303-477-5600. And again, that’s 303-477-5600. And my direct line is 720-394-6887. And once again, that’s 720-394-6887. So access to being able to meet with someone like me. So when people call and they want to meet with me and talk about their estate plan, they’re asking for access to me. And so I will talk to them and because I am booked all the way out until my first openings are April 1st at this point. So, and no, that’s not an April fool’s joke. That’s just, I happen to be booked all the way through March. So that puts me about 10 or 11 weeks out with access to being able to sit down with me. And so, yeah. Some people, and I usually am pretty straightforward with that. I’m like, okay. Like, yeah, we could meet. I am scheduling appointments the first week of April right now. And I say, does that work for your timeframe? And some people will say, no, I need it done much sooner than that. And I say, okay, then you might need to search for another attorney who has sooner availability than I do. Because me being booked all the way through March is a fairly recent phenomenon, right? When I first started my law firm, there was not 10 or 11 weeks worth of people who were like, oh, hey, let’s just all sign up with Michael right now so that we can be booked two and a half months out. There weren’t just a whole bunch of people waiting around hoping that Michael Bailey would start his own law firm and that Michael Bailey would be an estate planning attorney so that And so I’ve worked my way up to that over the last 10 to 15 years. And it used to be that when I was first starting out, when somebody was they’d call to be like, oh, you know, we want to try to meet this week. I’m like, cool. You know, I could probably do tomorrow at 2 or 3 in the afternoon. And what that meant was I have the entire afternoon free, but I’m not like, oh, hey, I’m free for whenever you want because that just doesn’t seem like the greatest of ideas. And, you know, to be too available, I mean, so there’s, as a business owner, you always run the, you’re trying to split the distance between being too available because you have nothing going on or not available at all because you have too much going on. And, you know, somewhere in the middle there is where we all end up, you know, different times. So when I first started as a law firm, I had a lot more available time. And so I could be available, you know, on a day or two’s notice to be able to meet with somebody. Now that’s not as possible for me. And sometimes I have people who are fairly sure That I should always have access for them and that I should always be able to meet with them within a day or two, and that I should always have the chance to get everything done. And apparently if they call me and ask me or email me, I should respond. immediately and have everything finished because apparently things don’t take time they just you know it’s it’s all instantaneous we can hit the instantly solve problem button and it’s amazing how that works well it doesn’t work that way because life doesn’t work that way but sometimes people will become quite upset that I don’t have the availability and the access that they would like for me to have as an estate planning attorney. And so I usually explain that I am a solo estate planning attorney. So there’s only one person in my firm. It’s me. Um, I do have a paralegal and a notary who worked for me, um, But it’s not quite the same. And so when we talk about access, I try to help as many people as I can as quickly as I can. But sometimes the concepts of access aren’t quite as wonderful as we might think and what might seem. I mean, we’ve gotten used to as a society, you know, I can walk into Costco and I know that there will be some form of ground beef there that I can purchase because the people who run Costco have figured out how to have supply chains that bring in ground beef and that’s that ground beef is there and it will get sold so that it won’t spoil while it’s at the store and So it can be sold to consumers and move on and do all of those wonderful things. And when you think about we’re feeding 350 million people here in America and we get the food from the farms to the stores to people to be cooked and put on tables and with a fair amount of or a lack of rotting and spoilage and things like that. What they do with that is pretty darn amazing and pretty darn cool. And we benefit from that. Well, but I do recall during the pandemic trying to buy hamburger patties. And one Saturday I went to Sam’s Club and there were no hamburger patties, not a single one in the store. So I drove up the road to went to Costco and Costco had hamburger patties so I could buy some hamburger patties. And then the next week I happened to be at Costco and there were no hamburger patties at Costco. They just didn’t have any. So I drove down the road to Sam’s Club and they had some hamburger patties. So it was just, you know, the supply chains weren’t functioning quite as well for the stores during the pandemic for, you know, a number of reasons of government shutdowns. All those type of things. But it kind of gave us a little bit of a lesson in how access and supplies aren’t always exactly what we think and what we may want. And, you know, that’s true of services. That’s true of services. goods. It’s true of me and the services I provide as an estate planning attorney. I mean, several years ago, I mean, I still work as a basketball referee, but several years ago, I also worked as a baseball umpire and I do high school level baseball or summer league high school level baseball. And I remember one day an assigner called me and they’re like, Hey, can you be at heritage high school at 2 p.m.? ? I said, well, you’ve already assigned me a game at Mountain Range High School at 2 p.m. So I could do both games, but you’re only going to get half as good of calls and it’s only going to be on one field because Heritage High School is way down in Littleton and Mountain Range High School is way up in Westminster. So, you know, there’s 40 miles between the two. I’m not going to be able to be on both baseball fields at the same time and make good calls either. Well, I mean, I think I’ll make good calls on the field. I’m not at the other one, not so much. So there’s a limit to the service that we can provide. That’s why there’s a whole bunch of different officials. And so the professional ranks have a limited number of officials who can dedicate themselves to being officials and being trained. You know, I mean, there’s… The umpires who work in Major League Baseball, that’s all they do is they work in Major League Baseball. And they spend lots of time training and studying the rules and being ready for any and every situation that could ever possibly occur. Wow. So high school level officials like me, we put in plenty of time and effort in training, but we’re not dedicated to being officials nearly to the level that the pro ranks are. So the Major League Baseball has pro officials and dedicated officials, full-time officials. Major League Baseball has that. The NBA has that. NHL has that. For whatever reason, the NFL does not. I think the NFL, because they only have games on Sunday, they don’t have the Major League Baseball, the NHL, the NBA. They play all days of the week, whereas NFL referees usually only on Sundays. Okay, so there’s an occasional Thursday night game or a Monday night game. But for the most part, they work other jobs and then are also NFL officials. And, of course, there’s talk of changing that and having full-time officials. But, you know, also in Major League Baseball, there’s 162 games per season for the teams. And in the NFL, there’s 18. So, you know, it’s a little bit different. You know, the 17 regular season games and then some preseason games. But still, so they, but even the, the pro leagues will limit access to who can officiate their games. I mean, I think most fans are pretty sure that they’re better referees or officials than the officials who are working the game and, you know, they know better. And of course, part of that boils down to, well, you know, referee makes a call in real time and then We as fans watch it on 23 slow-mo replays broken down frame by frame, and we’re like, oh, that’s clear as day. How could he possibly have missed that? I’m like, well, there might be some timing things involved, and this is not a show to defend officials or something like that, but everybody’s pretty sure that they could umpire a game better than the umpire when they think the umpire’s made a mistake, or they could referee a game better than the referee when they think the referee’s made a mistake. All of those things go into it. But there’s limited access to who can actually officiate those games based on the level of experience and what they do. And so you are listening to Mobile Estate Planning with Michael Bailey here on KLZ 560 AM or 100.7 FM or possibly the KLZ 560 radio app. Phone number to talk to me on the air is 303-477-5600. And again, that’s 303-477-5600. And my direct line is 720-394-6887. And once again, that’s 720-394-6887. So there’s a pool of officials. So the major league, the professional sports leagues have access to them to use them, and so they will use them. Now, as a high school official, sometimes I’ll work with somebody who also works college level, and the rules are slightly different for the college level versus the high school level. But if you take an official, you say, oh, well, this is a great official. We need him on all of our high school games. And then the official says, yes, but I’m assigned to work a game between Kentucky and Duke tomorrow because I’m a college official. The high school association is not going to be like, no, you have to come work the high school level. No, the college ranks, they pay better. They’re much more organized. All of those things. I mean, if you’re going to get paid $5,000 to go work Duke versus Kentucky, you’re going to get paid $100 to work a varsity game at Denver North versus Denver West. I mean, you do the math. Which one’s better, 5,000 or 1,000? Okay, think really hard and answer. So you can’t always have access to the best of the best of the best of the best of the best because they’re doing something else. And I’m not going to call myself the best of the best of the best of the best of the best of the best as an estate planning attorney. But I am a busy estate planning attorney, which means I will help as many people as I can as quickly as I can. But there might not always be 100% access to me at the moment that a client may want it. And so I help people as much as I can. Some people are like, oh, we need to know what’s going to happen. What happens when we die? And how do our kids interact with your office? And I’m like, okay, well, thanks. First off, let’s talk about that. Why would they need to interact with me? Well, you know, to implement the will. I’m like, okay. So I don’t handle probate administration. So that would be something that I’d refer to my friends who do probate administration. But your kids are perfectly able to contact me. and I will point them in the right direction. I’ll let them know where they can find the forms to go through probate, but I’m not necessarily going to be the person who is going to do that. Now, some clients, some potential clients will be like, well, I want somebody who’s going to not only write the will, but do it all the way from start to finish. I’m like, okay, cool. There are attorneys like that out there. Please feel free to find them. Well, why can’t you do it? Because it’s not part of how I’ve structured my practice. It’s not anything against anybody else. It’s just not how I’ve structured my practice. It’s kind of like going to an orthodontist and say, well, hey, I need you to make sure that you can do my major jaw surgery and reconstruct my teeth. And the orthodontist says, so I’m an orthodontist. That’s what I do. You don’t go to the orthodontist to… Get your teeth cleaned on a regular basis. That’s what we have a general dentist for. A general dentist is also, although their degree is a doctor of dental surgery, DDS, they aren’t necessarily going to be someone who does something like wisdom teeth surgery. There are people who specialize in doing wisdom teeth surgery. Or my 15-year-old daughter, when she first got her braces that are now off, she had a tooth that was going like sideways in her chin. It wasn’t like coming up to replace a baby tooth. It was in the wrong place. And we’re like, what is this tooth doing? This tooth is confused. The chin is not where a tooth should be. So the orthodontist happened to notice it on an x-ray. So the orthodontist sent her to an oral surgeon who could go in and kind of cut open her chin and scrape out and break out and remove this tooth that was growing in her chin. And was it the most fun time? No. But did it need to happen? Yes. Are we thankful that there are things like anesthesia and pain medicines? Absolutely. We’re also grateful that there is an oral surgeon who holds the same degree as a dentist, same degree as an orthodontist, but is specialized. And so those specialized people do what they do. And sometimes people… The public in general may not understand the difference between preparing an estate plan and implementing or executing an estate plan. And I understand that that’s not necessarily common knowledge that everybody’s supposed to have. I do my best on my website and And speaking with people to let them know that there’s kind of I’m on the front end. That’s kind of the back end of things. And I do explain that to people, you know, 10, 15 years after I’ve talked to them when they come back and they want me to implement everything. And I will have to sometimes I have to remind them of that, that I don’t do everything. and that the access is going to be a bit limited there. I had a client just the other day who said, well, you know, what if we have like an emergency? And I’m like, what would be an estate planning emergency? He’s like, I don’t know. I’m like, are you thinking like if you’re in the ICU and you want to change your will right before you die and you only give me a couple of days worth of notice? I’m like, I’m not going to be able to do that for you. I’m too busy. During the pandemic, I got many calls from people who their mom or dad or uncle or somebody was on a COVID floor in the ICU and they wanted me to go in and do their estate plan because I travel to go onto the COVID floor and be able to get their estate plan done. And most of the time, they’re like, oh, they’re supposed to go on a ventilator in a day or two, so we need it done in the next day or two. And I’m like, I had to explain how I just didn’t have the time or the ability because I was booked out. And I wasn’t trying to avoid people. I wasn’t trying to do terrible things. I was trying to help as many people as I can as quickly as I can. But it doesn’t always work the way that we might want it to. So when you’re looking at setting up an estate plan, please realize that there are access issues. I’m happy to be accessible to as many people as I can, but we need to consider the access. I haven’t been accessible for the last half an hour because I’ve been talking on the air, but I am off to another appointment to help somebody out at 4 o’clock today. So thanks so much for listening to Mobile Estate Planning with Michael Bailey, and I’ll see you next week. Thanks and bye.

SPEAKER 01 : 27:29

Mobile estate planning with Michael Bailey will return to ATX next Wednesday at 2.30 here on KLZ 560, AM 560, FM 100.7, and online at klzradio.com.