Death planning is not the term I use when I talk to my clients. Thinking about your estate plan and health care documents is not always a positive experience for people. Dealing with your own mortality is tough. It’s a very heavy subject and can cause a lot of emotions. So, calling it “death planning” can be a bit jarring. It’s an important topic that many people leave on the back burner as long as they can. But there are often more aspects to it than just creating a will.
This weekend, the New York Times had a long article in its Sunday Business section, A Boom Time for Death Planning.
Death Planning and the Coronavirus
In the article, the NY Times refers to a service called Cake, a service that says it helps you organize your end of life and mortality decisions. According to its website, the categories it helps with are,
- Health decisions
- My aging parents
- Documents & checklists
- Grief and Loss
- Exploring Mortality
The categories address a variety of issues that you should be considering. Many of these categories overlap the work you can do with an estate planning attorney. The psychological aspect of “Grief and Loss” and “Exploring Mortality” are also areas that you should be considering as well when creating an estate plan.
Death Planning and Your Legal Documents
As a general principle, your estate plan documents are the legal part of your end-of-life planning. Many of the services offered by Cake speak to the psychological aspects of the planning. While my practice focuses on the legal side, many of my clients want to delve into the psychological aspects of their plan as well. Rather than just punching out a form from a website, they have personalized concerns. Those who come from blended families have very different goals than a young individual who just graduated from college.
One of the primary advantages of going through the psychological aspects of your planning is that it will help provide you with clarity. (Much like my work with businesses, no matter where you turn, that word “clarity” always seems to find its way into the conversation). Being able to have that clarity and express that to your lawyer can ensure that your wishes are encompassed in your estate plan documents.
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Next Steps
If it’s time for you to get your estate plan put together, or if you’ve got an old one that needs updating, call my office to set up a Legal Strategy Session and we can review the best options for you – (877) AMAYERS.
