What's in it for Lawyers?

• Need to engage with and be part of the community of estate service professionals
• Need specialist estate planning and administration continuing professional education and qualification recognition.
• Who are practicing as wills and estate or trusts and estate practitioners need the recognition that they already providing a client centred, strategy service model of estate planning as a foundation process for their client estate advice and administration practices.
• Need to assist non-legal qualified estate advisers deal with the full range of legal issues that may arise from their client's affairs.
• Need to have their occupational speciality in trust and estate practice more broadly recognised in the community.

Whilst non-legal estate advisors may well be engaged to help clients with the administration of their affairs and dealing with non legal factual and strategic issues, it is only the lawyers who can deal with the legal aspect of client affairs.

Succession Law is not a compulsory part of legal education so lawyers with this education and practice focus need broad public recognition.

Lawyers with this practice focus need specialist continuing professional education and the opportunity to contribute to the development of trust & estate practice in all professional disciplines.

Lawyers and estate service professionals need to build a community of interest that can identify senior practitioners focussed on estates practice across the professions.

Estplan, working under the umbrella of the Society of Trust & Estate Professionals (STEP see www.step.org) provides a means for this to occur.