[music] Welcome to Mobile Estate Planning with your host, Michael Bailey. Over a decade ago, Attorney Michael Bailey turned his attention to a state 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. [music] I get afternoon welcome to Mobile Estate Planning with Michael Bailey here on KLZ 560 AM. Also heard on 100.7 FM or 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. Once again, that’s 720-394-6887. So this may come as a shock to anybody who knows me, but I don’t know everything. Just because I pretend like I know everything doesn’t mean that I actually know everything. I think that the older I get, I don’t know, I’m more and more subscribed to the philosophy that comes from Socrates of true wisdom consists in knowing that you know nothing. So if that’s true, I need to forget a whole bunch of stuff and then I can know nothing and that’ll be even wiser than I am. But every once in a while, people seem to think that I should know everything. I got a call today from somebody who wanted me to review their lease. We said that’s not necessarily what I do because I’m a state planning, so I focus on wills and trusts and powers of attorney and things like that. I got another call from somebody who they just split up with their boyfriend and apparently the boyfriend took their stuff. So I guess when he moved out, he took some of their furniture, things that belonged to this lady who had called me and she wanted to know what her rights were and what she was supposed to do if she needed to file a lawsuit against him. And I said, I’m sorry, I just don’t know. It’s not where I practice. That would be something that you really ought to talk to somebody who’s a family attorney or some sort of specific, maybe like a litigation attorney or just a civil dispute attorney or something like that, but it’s just not what I know how to do. And both of those people were pretty gracious and understanding, oh, well, thanks for calling me back and do you have somebody who can help? And I’m like, sure, here’s a name and number of somebody who might be able to help you. And when I give out and referrals, most of the time it works out well. But sometimes it doesn’t go quite as well. I had a client who called me the other day and apparently they were, they received an unexpected medical bill. And it was not a $50 or $100 one. It was significant, like in the tens of thousands of dollars type of significant. And so they called me, I think because I’m the only attorney that they know. Not that they were, I have no idea. But they called me and this particular client was very surprised that I did not immediately spring into action and spend the rest of the day fighting this injustice of an unexpected medical bill. Now, part of the reason I didn’t do that is because the person had gone through a medical procedure so there was probably medical bills there. Now the client claimed that they had not received any notice that there would be a bill for this and they thought that the price that they had paid would be all inclusive of everything. So it is very possible that they received a bill that they should have been told about prior to being billed for things. And that is very possible. It’s just not an area of law that I practice. Now this particular client did not react well to me saying that’s not what I do. She was like, well, what do you think is in this, you know, wrong isn’t this against the law. I don’t know enough about that area of law to be able to give an intelligent opinion. She was like, well, no, just tell me what do you think. And I said, I don’t know enough to have an opinion. And apparently that was the wrong answer. Because I always suppose to talk about or speculate or say something or I don’t know if she expected me to look up the rules. I have no idea. But this particular client was quite upset that I just didn’t know everything. She kept saying, well, you’re a lawyer. And I’m like, okay. And I think it’s a little bit, I think a little bit what I ran into was this kind of the popular concept of what a lawyer is and what a lawyer is supposed to do and what a lawyer is supposed to know. And I think a lot of that is shaped by some of the TV shows that we watch. I mean, I remember, there’s not too many legal shows that I can watch anymore without me going, oh my gosh, seriously, I can’t do that. I mean, of course, you know, the law and order where Jack Watterson, you know, will stand up and just kind of give these big speeches in the middle of a courtroom. And I’m like, you know, I worked for a judge for nine months. There was never a time where one of the attorneys just stood up and gave a big speech in a courtroom and suddenly everything worked out. I mean, so law and order is a little bit like CSI where CSI, you present all the evidence and it’s all laid out and the person confesses and says, oh, you got me. I did this. Well, and law and order apparently, you know, the speech is given and everybody goes, oh, yeah, we’ve figured it out. Sorry, it’s Jack McCoy and the actor is Sam Watterson. I was mixing in matching names earlier. I apologize. Just this came to me. But still, that’s not how courtrooms work. Courtrooms are a lot more boring than, you know, you’d find on law and order or a pariamac in or any of the other cup shows. We were watching one, I think it was Boston Legal. And Boston Legal is more of a drama slash comedy, I don’t know. But it happens to take place in a courtroom. But as we were watching, there was a case and somebody is saying something and they were talking about it and trying to figure out all of these, the thing, they’re trying to figure out this. And then, you know, a different attorney walks in and says, well, wait a minute. Don’t you all remember this case, which is some obscure case that was decided in the backwater woods in the, you know, tiny county where there’s 15 people in the entire county. And there were, you know, two of them that opposed the other two and there was one judge. And, you know, so there was this case that made this law. So, you know, now that’s the rule and, you know, it would be, you know, show what happens to absolutely everything on this case. And therefore, this is what we need to do and we’ll win. Of course, they go in and cite this obscure case that nobody knows about. And, you know, because they’re the heroes, they’re the law firm that always wins. They won. And I’m like, yay! And so, I think sometimes people think that that’s what attorneys do is that we sit and we, you know, law school apparently consists of memorizing all of the statutes and memorizing what all of the cases say. And so, then when somebody comes to us, we’re like, oh, I remember that. There was this case and this statute here that I memorized. So now, I know it and I can use it to make everything work out perfectly. Well, that’s not quite how the law works. I mean, everything working out perfectly. If you’re involving lawyers in a dispute, working out perfectly really isn’t going to be the outcome. There’s probably going to be a little bit of anger resentment, upsetness. You know, I have a law school classmate who he had a problem with how contingent legal fees work. And we’ll tell that story in just a second. But right now, I’ll remind you that you are listening to KLZ 560 AM or 100.7 FM, possibly on the KLZ 560 radio app. One number to talk to me on the air is 303-477-560-0. And again, that’s 303-477-5600. And my direct line is 720-3946-887. And one more time, 720-3946-887. So there’s many different ways to bill as law firms. Some law firms bill by the billable hour. So they will charge an hourly rate for everything they do and work on it. Some law firms charge by the case or by the work. They’re like, OK, I’m going to write a will. I’m going to charge you 500 bucks for a will. I’m going to write you a trust. It’ll be between two and 3,000. I’m going to write you an LLC operating agreement. It will cost 1,500 or whatever it is. So there’s some standard flat fees there. Or there’s attorneys who charge on a contingent basis. And a contingent basis– a lot of this has to do with personal injury in those type of cases, where if somebody was injured in an auto accident and the attorney takes on the case, you see this on TV all the time. They’re like, we don’t pay anything. So let’s say that you’re severely injured in an auto accident. And you hire one of these attorneys. And the attorney is going and they sue whatever company– let’s say a truck driver fell asleep and smashed into somebody. Or that means it has happened just a couple of months ago on I-70 or I-76. Some I lost control. And they kind of have rolled over. And their pipes fell off the back and smashed a couple of cars and killed some people. This is terrible. We don’t want anybody to die by large pipes clinging across the freeway. It’s a terrible thing. We just don’t want to happen. But since it did, whoever was driving the truck and the trucking company is probably going to be held liable for that accident and having killed some people. So the attorneys will go in and file a lawsuit and the outcome, whatever, whether it’s a jury trial or a settlement. At the end, let’s say that they agree that person’s life is worth. Yeah, I don’t actually know what the prevailing legal dollar amount for a person’s life is. But we talked about it a whole public health economics class. And we said, a person’s life might be valued at somewhere between two and $5 million, depending on their age and health and things like that. So let’s say the person’s life is worth $5 million. OK, sounds good. I don’t know what a person’s life is invaluable. I would have a tough time putting a dollar amount on it, but I do understand that has to happen in the legal system. So they say, OK, there’s four people. And so their lives are valued at $5 million a piece. So there’s $20 million that we need the trucking company to pay to the surviving families of these people to pay for all of the lost income and the pain and suffering and everything else. Well, my friend was like, that’s terrible, because if we say we’ve got one third of that, it’s going to go to legal fees as a contingent fee. So if you’ve got $20 million, then the attorneys are going to earn close to $7 million by doing this. Well, yeah, my friends are like, well, they figure out to the penny exactly how much money this person needs to live on for the rest of their life. And then the attorneys are like, oh, and I’ll take a third of that. Ha, ha, take that. Well, first of all, I don’t think that’s quite how the figures are. It’s not OK. We’ve got a judgment here. Why don’t you figure out exactly how much is going to cost in the future for this person to live with their injury? And please make sure you factor in inflation properly, and factor in increased prices, and factor in any income they may have, or social security, disability income. You calculate it the best you can, but it’s not an exact science. I mean, you just can’t know exactly what prices are going to do or inflation’s going to do over the next 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 years. As a general thought, prices tend to go up, because there tends to be inflation, and things tend to become more expensive. But even if things are more expensive, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re a higher percentage of what you are. So we did this in economic classes. We’d calculate what the– when people talk about the good old days, and oh, I remember the good old days where you could get a dozen eggs for a dime or like cool. And then you put that in inflation, and we’d calculate all of that. We’d be like, well, your good old days were eggs cost a dime. That would mean that the eggs now should cost $9.83. The carton of eggs is still $2.83. So $2.83 is significantly more than the dime. But it’s also less than when you adjust for inflation. So I’m not entirely sure that my friend’s criticism of contingent fees was quite where it needed to be. And contingent fees in something like setting up in a state plan, they don’t make a whole lot of sense. You know, I’m like, well, when you die, I need to get a certain dollar amount because I set up your state plan. Well, that would be great if I did lots of estate plans for people who die quickly. But I have clients who die. That’s nature of things. But I really hope that I set up a state plan that is there and doesn’t get used for 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years. I’d love to have an estate plan that she set up. And you’re like, OK, I’ve got the state plan set up. Everything seems like it’s where it needs to be. And then the person lives a long, happy, healthy life. We’re like, cool. That’s what we’re looking for. We’re looking for death is inevitable. But it doesn’t have to be– I wouldn’t want to be like, oh, I really hope people die so that I can get paid out or something like that. Or, you know, even worse would be OK. What we’re going to do is I’ll set up your estate plan. But then you agree to let me buy a million dollar insurance policy on you so that when you die, I get paid a million dollars. Cool. That’d be awesome. And then suddenly, I’m hoping that my clients die so that I can get paid a million dollars in all of them. That doesn’t seem like a good incentive. I’m like, well, I’ll pay for the insurance policy, but I’m hoping that she dies soon so that I get paid out. That’s not– it is an investment strategy. Sometimes that people will buy life insurance on their parents or something like that. And then when their parents die, it pays out significant amount to them. I’ve heard of that investment strategy. It always seems a little bit weird to me. You’d be like, oh, well, I’m going to get life insurance on my parents. Then I can profit from my parents dying. Well, if my parents have life insurance, then it pays out. And I won’t turn it down. But I don’t know that I necessarily feel 100% comfortable putting life insurance on my parents. Now that my parents would qualify for life insurance at this point since they’ve had some health issues. But there’s lots of different ways to do billing. There’s lots of different ways to do everything. And each law firm is allowed to pick which one would make the most sense for them. I had another client who called me. And apparently his dad is refusing to do a repair. But the HOA says it’s critical and necessary. So his dad has been defying the HOA and not doing this repair. And so he’s defying the HOA. The HOA has had to go through the steps to next week. Apparently they’re going to go to court and be given permission to enter the property. Or at least they’re going to ask for permission to enter the property and perform this repair, even if the dad objects. And so but the dad over the course of however, last year and a half is accrued each time that there’s legal fees that the HOA has to hire an attorney to take whatever steps. The attorney is billing. And now there’s something like $7,000 worth of legal fees that need to be– they are being assessed against this person who is defying the HOA and not making a necessary repair. And we could have a whole discussion about whether HOAs are too powerful or whether HOAs are corrupt or whether HOAs are something or a good thing or a bad thing. And the correct answer is yes to all of those. It’s both at the same time. Yeah, good bad. And otherwise, probably so. But as they go through and do all of these things, it was like, so there’s $7,000. And of course, the sun thinks that’s an outrageous amount. And says, well, what do you think? It said, I have absolutely no idea. I don’t know what it takes to go through the court process. I don’t know what it takes to go through that. $7,000 legal bill may be perfectly understandable and justifiable and reasonable given those circumstances. But because I don’t play in those circumstances, I don’t exactly know. And so you’d have to– and whether or not, they will negotiate on those fees or reduce them at all. That’s something you’d have to talk to them about. Because I just don’t do everything. And I have a tough time giving a real good opinion about what other attorneys legal fees might be. So you are listening to Mobile Estate Planning with Michael Bailey here on KLC 560. I also heard on 100.7 FM or the KLC 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. Once again, that’s 720-394-6887. So we’ve got legal fees that are involved. We’ve got areas of law that are involved. And I’ve had many people say to me, you know, I find it kind of disappointing that, you know, attorneys just become so specialized in things. And I just want an attorney who can handle everything for me and I don’t understand why it has to be so complex. I don’t understand why it has to be so specialized. You know, how come you do that? And I’m like, well, there are generalists out there. And general attorneys, general who will take on any type of cases, they tend to be very, very good at legal research. And doing and, you know, looking up rules connected to different types of different types of laws and different types of estates and different types of everything. And, you know, I’ve– I spend plenty of time keeping up on what a state planning is, or the changing tax laws connected to a state planning, or what the different techniques that are available are. I spend plenty of time making sure that I’m up on those things. But I don’t spend a lot of time doing legal research and researching statutes and cases and everything connected to things that don’t have to do with a state planning. Now, part of that is that I’m busy enough with a state planning that I’m booked all the way through the end of the year already. Yeah, my next available appointments aren’t until January. So if I’m booked up for the next three and a half months with a state planning clients, I don’t really feel like I need to go and try to figure out something like bankruptcy or, you know, personal injury laws. It’s just, you know, what I do all the time. I think I do it well. And I think I can help people with it. And, you know, for some people who call, they want it done much sooner than when I can even start in January. And I’m like, that’s fine. Please feel free to look for somebody who has sooner availability than I do. Because, I mean, I, being booked out several weeks or several months is a fairly recent phenomenon for me. Yeah, when I first started doing this radio show, however many years ago it was, it’s been quite a few. I was not booked out for months at a time. But as I have grown and expanded and found different ways to help people and have been able to help people, I’ve become even better at that. But even within a state planning, there are specializations. And I have friends who all they do is Medicaid planning. And so when somebody is looking at, you know, going into long-term care and, oh, well, would I need, you know, how can I pay for that? And when will Medicaid kick in? How can I pay for all those things? You know, that’s what they do. That’s all they do. They also handle the Medicaid applications and getting all the paperwork ready and doing all of those things. Not all of that sounds fun to me. Not all of that sounds like what I want to do. And so I do a little bit of pre-planning for Medicaid where if somebody is going, well, you know, if I were to get sick, then I want to do x, y, and z. I’m like, OK, I can help with that. But there’s a five-year lookback period. So if we can plan five years or more in advance, then that’s the kind of planning that I can handle. You know, crisis planning of, oh, mom needs to go into long-term care tomorrow. I’m like, well, that’s not where I play. There are attorneys who do all sorts of asset protection stuff where if you start a business and they’ll try to put it into a trust or put it into a LLC that then has a trust as an owner that’s even done out of state. So there’s, you take advantage of different laws from different states. And there are people who do things like that. And I don’t necessarily do that. I’m people who want things protected from lawsuits. Well, I’m not a– I don’t really do a lot of asset protection from lawsuits type of work. It’s just not what I do. This is not my where I play. And so someone who wants an asset protection trust and wants to protect things from lawsuits, I’m more than happy to refer them to my friends who will handle things like that. I just– if I were in a firm with 10 other attorneys and we all had different specialties, then I could refer them within my firm. But since I’m a firm of one, it’s me, myself, and I, a paralegal and a notary. But there’s only one attorney. That’s me. I just– I help as many people as I can with what I can as quickly as I can. But I may not be able to do absolutely everything. So for those who need the estate planning of, hey, what’s going to happen to our stuff when we die? And how do we get from here to there? And how do we put in charge and planning for all of that so that when the time comes, when somebody passes away, we have a plan that we can implement to effectuate the transfer of assets. It’s all set up and ready to go. That doesn’t necessarily mean that everything’s going to be solved all the time at all and all possible circumstances. But it does mean that we have a plan that we can implement the plan. The plan can be implemented with either through the courts with a will or just through trustee with a trust. But we have plans in place that will work and documents that you can take to a bank or a title company or an investment company and get those assets transferred from the deceased person to the name to beneficiaries of the years. So we set that up. Yes, I don’t do everything. But what I do is very useful, very helpful for people who end up in that situation. And since we’re all going to die, I suppose we’re all going to end up in that situation. It’s just nature of life. Hopefully not anytime soon. Hopefully nobody out there is going to die anytime soon. I don’t want that to happen. But since it’s inevitable, we plan for it. So thank you so much for listening to Mobile Estate Planning with Michael Bailey here on 560KLZ. I will be back next week. But stay tuned for John Rush and Restor reason, coming up at 3. Thanks and have a great day. Bye-bye. [MUSIC PLAYING] Mobile Estate Planning with Michael Bailey will return to ATX next Wednesday at 230 here on KLZ 560, AM 560, FM 100.7, and online at kelzradio.com.