Why We Exist
This part is very near and dear to my heart. I am going to practice some whole hearted living right here. I’ll start with this…have you heard of the word Kairos?
kai·ros /ˈkīräs/
noun
a propitious moment for decision or action.
We use this word in our family pretty frequently. Yes, I admit we are nerdy family. But honestly, don’t you want to lawyer to be a bit nerdy? We use it when we are learning something about life and we are presented with an opportunity to act. Sometimes these are big moments that we are presented with because of big opportunities or big set-backs. Sometimes these are just little tweaks. Either way, in our family we believe it’s important to take a pause, and make an intentional decision.
In late 2016 I was presented with a kairos. I came to a point where I realized I said yes to so many things that I wasn’t intentional in where I was spending my time. I let others dictate it for me. As a new mother I became acutely aware of where I was investing my time and I wanted to decide how I spent my time. I also realized that many families were asking questions that lawyers weren’t really answering. So I decided to set out on my own and created Batsche Law so I can answer those questions and decide how to invest my time an energy.
My desire for Batsche Law PLLC is that is a beacon of clarity and peace for families.
How We Are Different
Explaining to you how we’re different requires an explanation of what the “traditional” experience with a lawyer is like. If you’ve worked with a lawyer to prepare estate planning documents for you in the past, this will sound familiar.
During the traditional experience, you’ll go in and meet with a lawyer who will oftentimes make things seem very complicated and confusing.
You’ll have a good idea your lawyer is smart and seems to know what they are doing, so you’ll nod and answer questions, as if you understand everything. Because you want to do the right thing for your family, you’ll have the lawyer prepare documents for you and you’ll sign the documents, feeling relieved you got THAT taken care of.
You’ll take your fancy estate planning binder full of documents home, stick it on a shelf or in a drawer, mark estate planning off your checklist as DONE, feel good and never think about it again.
You might remember your lawyer said something about moving your bank accounts into your trust so you’ll go to the bank, forget what you were supposed to do.
A few weeks later, you’ll get a bill in the mail for $67.50 for 15 minutes of your lawyer’s time for answering a couple of questions. You’ll make a mental note– don’t call lawyer ever again.
Several years later, you’ll refinance your house or sell it and buy a new one and forget that you were supposed to let your lawyer know or make sure you kept the title in the name of the trust.
Your children will get older, making your guardianship choices outdated, but you don’t want to call your lawyer because you know you’ll get a bill in the mail two weeks later.
You’ll hear something about a change in the tax law, but you figure you’d surely get a letter in the mail from your lawyer if it was something that affected you, so you don’t worry about it. And, you’d have to dig through boxes to find your trust documents so you could remember your lawyer’s name and find her contact information. Who has time for that?
It’s not until you become incapacitated or die and your family finds the binder you stuck up on a shelf several years before and never looked at again, that they’ll realize your plan is so outdated that it has nothing to do with your life, your assets and the law.
Your family is at a loss. They don’t know where to turn or what to do, so they contact the same lawyer you used to prepare the documents, who is as happy as can be to probate your assets, which never made it into the trust.
How do I know all this?
Because I have seen countless clients come in to see me who have had this exact experience elsewhere.
Unfortunately, what I realized is the estate planning industry was not designed to serve growing families who experience lots of change on their way to success. It was designed to serve 80 and 90-year old’s who were preparing for death. While that is good and important. This model doesn’t serve the vast majority of people who still need planning for their life.
Our Firm Prepares You for Life
What makes our firm different is that we were built with the needs of growing families in mind. We understand you are BUSY, you are growing, you are planning for a life of prosperity. My guess? In this season, you value ease, convenience and efficiency. You are raising children, and caring for elderly parents, while also working hard to build your own nest egg for a lifetime of support. You want to know you’ve made the best decisions for your family and that your plan will work when your loved ones need it most. You want to make sure your minor children would be raised by the people you choose, and never by anyone you wouldn’t want, and that your teens and adult children are properly prepared to care for you and what you leave behind.
You want to feel confident that you’ve made the right choices, and handled everything so that you aren’t leaving behind a mess, when something happens.
That is our focus as well. We’ve developed unique systems to give you the same access to a Personal Family Lawyer® as was previously only available to the super-wealthy, so you can have the guidance you need to build and maintain a life of prosperity and wealth. And, to keep your family out of court and out of conflict, which is the greatest risk to the people you love and all you have created, even if you’ve already worked with a traditional lawyer or created documents online.
We Help You Transfer Your “Family Wealth”
Finally, we believe your financial wealth is only a small part of your overall “Family Wealth” which is made up of your far more valuable – and most often lost upon incapacity or death – intellectual, spiritual and human assets. These assets are what make you who you are, and sum up what’s most important to you. And, a survey of inheritors has revealed that what they care about even more than inheriting your money, is inheriting these intangible assets.
Most estate plans only focus on the transfer of your financial wealth to the next generation. Most people have such great intentions of passing on the intangible, but very few ever get around to it. It’s just not a priority, until it’s too late. How much do you know about your grandparents’ values? Their most prized personal possessions? How they felt about you? What they had learned during their lifetime?
If you are like most people, you know very little. That’s why we build an opportunity to capture and passage of these most valuable assets into every estate plan we create. Not only will we help you pass on your money, but also your values, your insights, your stories and your experience – the truly valuable assets your loved one’s care about the most.
We’ve developed a space that allows us to capture and pass on your whole family wealth, including your Intellectual, Spiritual and Human assets. I can’t go into all of the details here, but we’ll definitely talk about it when you come in for your Family Wealth Planning Session. Book Your Planning Session here now.
We look forward to seeing you and caring for your family soon!
And if you think this all sounds expensive, well, you are right and you’re wrong. I can guarantee you that if you qualify to meet with a Personal Family Lawyer®, that planning is substantially less costly than it would be for your family if you became incapacitated or die with a plan that doesn’t work or if you don’t have a plan in place at all.
