Jeffrey Banner and Timothy Sechler

As a veteran-owned law firm, the attorneys at Heritage Elder Law help clients set clearly defined goals before creating an estate plan. This is an old habit for us.

As other veterans will attest, not much happens in the military without someone first setting specific goals and objectives. I can’t recall going on a mission without first knowing where we were going and what we were going to accomplish once we got there.

Sometimes the routes or plans changed, but the goals seldom did.

When we started our law firm, my business partner, Jeffrey Banner, and I started with the objective of helping Pennsylvania families avoid losing their assets to long-term care costs. We both had personal experiences with family members needing long-term care and watched as hard-earned assets were quickly depleted. We wanted to help other families avoid this outcome.

With this goal in mind, we began to work on our plans to reach the goal. The plans and strategies have changed from time to time. The goal never does.

We approach every day with this goal in mind, and we now have a busy practice, and we’re honored to serve several hundred families per year.

We’ve found that the path to success in our prior roles as non-commissioned officers and in our current roles as estate planning attorneys is the same. First set a specific goal and then design the plan to reach that goal.

This is the same approach we take in helping our clients create their estate plans. We firmly believe our clients need to become very clear about the goals they are trying to accomplish.

This is why we offer several Heritage Plan Workshops each month to educate families on the government’s complicated rules. During the workshop, we discuss common estate planning goals and how planning documents like wills and trusts are used to accomplish the goals.

With this education, our clients come to a free meeting and are prepared to set goals and choose a plan.

Choosing an estate plan without first getting the proper education would be like going on a military mission without clear goals and objectives. That’s just dangerous.

This article was submitted by Jeffrey Banner and Timothy Sechler, partners at Heritage Elder Law.