How Estate Planning Lawyers Get Local Links

Estate Planning Link Partners, From a New Trust to a Settled Estate

Each row is a kind of local business that shares clients with an estate planning and probate firm, listed by when a family meets it. The question column gives you something to ask each partner when you quote them. The guide to expert quotes has an example quote from a probate attorney, written for an estate sale company's website.

Financial Advisors Move the Accounts a New Trust Needs

Financial advisors are the partner most estate planning lawyers already trade referrals with. A living trust only covers what has been moved into it, and the advisor files that paperwork with the account custodian.

For example, a couple signs a living trust in March. By June their brokerage account is still in their own names, because the advisor hadn't heard the trust was signed.

• After You Sign a Trust, Moving Accounts and Updating Beneficiaries: This one is yours. Say which assets are usually retitled and which pass by a beneficiary form. Ask the advisor which transfers take the longest and quote the answer.
• Why Your Beneficiary Forms Matter as Much as Your Will: This one goes on the advisor's website. The advisor explains when to review the forms, such as after a marriage or a divorce. Your part is a few lines on how a beneficiary form and a will interact in your state.

You draft the documents and say how each asset should be titled, and the advisor does the transfers. Neither article recommends an investment. If the two of you already give a client seminar together, the page announcing it counts too, as one of the links from co-hosted events.

Home Care Agencies See Which Families Have No Power of Attorney

Home care agencies meet families at the point where a missing document starts to cost something. When an adult child calls about a parent, the agency asks who may sign the service agreement and pay from the parent's account.

For example, a daughter wants a caregiver three mornings a week for her father, whose memory is failing. He didn't sign a power of attorney and may no longer be able to. In many states her next step is asking a court to appoint a guardian or conservator. That takes longer and costs more than the document would have.

• Who Can Sign and Pay for a Parent's Home Care: Publish this on your firm's site. Explain in general terms what a financial power of attorney and a health care directive each allow in your state.
• Documents to Have Ready Before Home Care Starts: The agency publishes this. It lists what a family is asked for at intake, and you supply a sentence or two on what each legal document does.

The agency describes care, and you describe the documents. Leave out what public programs or long-term care insurance will pay, because that depends on the state, the policy and the person.

Funeral Directors Meet the Family Before Any Lawyer Does

Funeral directors hear a family's first legal questions, usually within days of a death, and they can't answer them as legal advice. Many would rather hand a family something reliable to read than say "ask a lawyer" and leave it there.

For example, a widow at the arrangement meeting asks how many death certificates to order and whether she can keep using the joint checking account. The funeral director can answer the first question, because the funeral home usually orders the certified copies. The second question is yours.

• The First Month After a Death, What Has to Happen and What Can Wait: Your firm writes this. Separate the few things with deadlines from the many that can wait until after the service. Quote the funeral director on what the funeral home takes care of.
• How Many Death Certificates to Order, and Who Will Ask for One: The funeral home writes this. You add the places that usually want a certified copy, such as banks, insurers and the probate court.

The funeral home handles the arrangements and the certificates, and your firm handles the estate. Write both articles for someone reading in the first weeks of grief, in plain steps, with nothing that sounds like a sales offer.

Real Estate Appraisers Put a Date-of-Death Value on the House

Real estate appraisers do a job most families have not heard of, which is valuing a house as of the day its owner died. Executors usually learn they need one from the lawyer, so appraisers who do estate work want to be known to firms like yours.

For example, a son inherits his mother's house and sells it three years later. His accountant asks what it was worth on the day she died, and nobody ordered an appraisal at the time. An appraiser can still work backward to that date, but it's harder without photos or records of the home's condition.

• When an Inherited House Needs an Appraisal: An article for your own site. Cover when an estate needs a date-of-death value, such as for the court inventory or a split among heirs. Explain why an online estimate usually won't do.
• What a Date-of-Death Appraisal Is, and What the Appraiser Needs From the Family: An article for the appraiser's site. The appraiser explains the inspection and the report. You add who orders it, which is normally the executor.

The appraiser decides the value, and you say when the estate needs one. Keep any target number out of the conversation, because an appraiser's opinion has to be independent.

Other Partners a Family or an Executor Ends Up Calling

Beyond those four, the businesses Local Link Match pairs with estate planning and probate firms follow the same order as the work. While a plan is being made, clients also see tax preparers, personal accountants, life insurance agents, business valuation firms and family lawyers. Community foundations, local charities and animal rescues are on the list too, since clients leave gifts to them.

When a parent needs care, the pairings include hospices, senior living placement agencies and senior move managers. After a death, an executor deals with real estate agents, title companies, estate sale companies, cleanout crews, antique dealers and estate jewelers. A few pairings surprise people, such as private investigators who trace missing heirs.

Bringing Up a Joint Article With an Advisor You Already Know

Raise the idea in person with someone who already sends you clients, before you email anyone you haven't met. Over coffee with a financial advisor you already know, something like this is enough:

With a funeral director or an appraiser, change the first line to the question their families ask. Look up any business you haven't worked with. It should have an office in your county, a current Google Business Profile, and the license its field requires.

Conduct Rules That Follow a Law Firm Into a Partner Article

A lawyer's partner article comes with professional conduct rules that an appraiser's doesn't, and they differ by state and province. Read your own before you publish.

Start with referral payments. Most bar and law society rules stop a lawyer from giving anything of value in return for a recommendation, with narrow exceptions. So the article and the link come with no money, no gifts and no promise of referrals.

Watch for legal advice in the partner's draft. An advisor who writes "a trust keeps your family out of court" has stated a legal conclusion with your firm's name beside it. Read every sentence about the law before it goes live, and label both articles as general information for your state.

Client stories are the other common problem. A real case can identify a family in a small town even with the names removed. A public probate file generally doesn't change your duty of confidentiality either. Use invented examples and say so, or get the client's written consent.

Some states also want marketing labeled as attorney advertising, and an article on your firm's site may count.

Local Link Questions From Estate Planning and Probate Lawyers

Which local link can an estate planning attorney get soonest?

A quote in an article the partner is already writing. Offer the financial advisor you share clients with two or three sentences on what a beneficiary form can't do. Ask to be credited by name, with a link to your firm. It asks less of the advisor than a pair of articles and often leads to one.

Is trading links with other law firms risky for an estate planning website?

Yes, when it's done in volume or with firms that share no clients with you. Google's spam policies treat link exchanges done to excess as link spam. In one case, law firms in a multi-state link network lost search visibility together. An article with the financial advisor across town is different, since the same client needs you both.

Will a financial advisor's compliance department approve an article with a law firm?

Usually, but plan for a review. Advisors at broker-dealers and registered investment firms generally have to clear public content with a compliance officer, which can take a few weeks. Send a finished draft with no performance claims or product names. If the firm won't publish outside articles at all, ask whether a short quote for your site can be approved.

Is a funeral home's website worth a link if it's mostly obituaries?

Usually yes. Obituaries bring local families to that site in the weeks they need a probate lawyer. Check that the funeral home is locally run and licensed. Then ask for your article to sit on a permanent page, not in a news feed that scrolls away.

Local Partners for an Estate Planning Firm, Beyond Your Referral List

Most estate planning lawyers can name two financial advisors and an accountant they trust. The appraiser, the home care agency and the funeral home are harder, because a search won't tell you which are established or willing to write.

Local Link Match introduces a firm to nearby businesses that serve the same families at a different point. It considers each one's standing in town as well as how its services fit yours. You don't need an account to see the businesses it would pair with your firm, from financial advisors to funeral homes.

When one of them looks right, open an account and send the first message.