Pictured are Donna Williams from LawyerLisa, speaker sponsor Kerry Powers, Lisa Hostetler Brown, and Optimist Club President David Kafitz.
By Rick Abercrombie
Lisa Hostetler Brown, known in South Carolina as “LawyerLisa,” spoke recently to St. Andrews Optimists at their Friday breakfast meeting. Donna Williams, LawyerLisa’s Markeing Director, was also in attendance. Brown discussed a wide variety of topics while avoiding the many “off-ramps” inherent in the subject matter — her time was limited to 30 minutes.
The planning and preparation for clients’ preferred handling of after-death assets can be a process that bewilders the average person. To whom assets should be directed and in what manner that distribution takes place is a decision that benefits greatly from consultation with experts in that field.
Brown emphasized that those decisions are best made proactively, at a pace that the client can digest. The reactive alternative introduces urgency and confusion to the proceedings and can lead to errors.
Brown divided the options as:
Dying intestate: i.e., without having created a will. In those cases, a Probate Judge makes all the decisions.
Legal will: this option guides the Probate process, administered by a personal representative, or “executor/executrix,” and allows the deceased to name specific recipients/inheritors of property. There can be variations, from one Probate Judge to the next, in terms of the Judge’s knowledge and in the pace at which the situation is settled. Brown noted that assets are divided into two classes: assets that must be handled via probate, or asses that are not handled via Probate.
Trust: Probate is not involved. In most cases, the distribution of assets is resolved much more quickly. Clients, in consultation with LawyerLisa attorneys, make certain that assets involved are properly retitled. When the time comes for asset allocation, trusts tend to make the whole experience simpler and less stressful for family members.
LawyerLisa can also offer advice on managing long-term care issues so that making those decisions are, again, made proactively and with as little confusion as possible.
LawyerLisa covers the entire state of South Carolina with four locations.
