EP 915- Estate Planning Strategies with Katie Krispin

Episode Notes

Transcript

Announcer:

Welcome to Heels in the Courtroom, where the trial lawyers of the Simon Law Firm break down what it takes to win in the courtroom and in life.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

Hello and welcome back to another episode of Heals in the Courtroom. I’m Liz Lenivy, and today I’m joined by Elizabeth McNulty, Katie St. John, and a very special guest, Katie Krispin. Hello, Katie.

Katie Krispin:

What’s up girls? Thanks for having me today.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

We’re so glad you’re here, Katie. And I’m going to ask you in a second to tell our listeners a little bit about your background, but for those of you who don’t have the privilege of knowing Katie, she is the owner of Katie Krispin Law Firm, LLC, where she handles trust, estate, and probate matters. I first got to know Katie a couple years ago when she was a law clerk of mine, one of my best law clerks. And I’m so glad to see you striking it out on your own. And you’re handling an area of law that I feel so often is tangential to what we do here and the kind of cases we handle here, but that I know so little about. So I’m so glad you’re here to join us and to talk about the kind of work that you do and the clients that you represent and how we can better utilize and understand the type of work that you do to serve our clients.

And so before we get into that though, I was hoping you could tell our listeners a little bit about your background. Obviously, they know that you clerked for me while you were in law school, but then what have you done since law school leading up to you now being a solo practitioner?

Katie Krispin:

I did clerk at Simon. It was one of the best experiences I’ve had to date. It’s an amazing group of people and I feel that it really set me up for just entering that transitionary period from law school to practice and kind of the realism that occurs that once you get out of the classroom, it’s like, okay, this is how things really go. And of course, just working under Liz and all the other women and men here, it was awesome. After I graduated in 19, I went and clerked at the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District. I clerked for Judge James M. Doud. He was fantastic. He told me from day one, treat this like a continuing education experience, and that’s exactly what I did. I was a sponge. Just learn as much as I possibly can and figure out what’s next. So that’s what kind of that mindset brought me into my next job.

And I was working at a firm here in town doing exactly what I do now, trust and estate, planning, administration, litigation, and everything that’s encompassed within that. And that was a great experience. Again, my mindset was get in there, grind, learn as much as you can, figure out what’s next. I did not know a single thing about that area of the law. Hindsight’s twenty twenty, but man, if I could go back and really pay attention to trust and estate’s class and appreciate it for what it was, I certainly would have. But having that learning mindset and openness has really suited me in my pursuit at my former jobs and now with owning my own law firm. So I’ve been out on my own for 10 months now, this month, and that’s kind of crazy to think about. I feel so young and I have a lot to learn, but it’s also, it feels like a lot has happened.

I’ve grown so much in the past 10 months and I’ve learned a lot about myself personally and professionally. So as Liz you mentioned, I am the trust and estate. I do planning, I do administration, and I do the litigation as well. So it keeps things very interesting. I love how it all kind of works together and how each step knowing about litigation or knowing about administration makes me a better estate planner. So I like the variety there and I think ultimately it helps me hone in on issues and be able to best serve my clients in that arena.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

Yeah. And I hope that your experience here working on cases that involve people that had suffered either catastrophic injury or had suffered a wrongful death from a loved one, I got to imagine that that, at least I hope, that experience has sort of prepared you sometimes to dealing with clients in also very sometimes emotionally charged situations. When I think about the types of cases we handle and the way that your area of law interplays with ours, I’m always curious and I want to know more. And then we’re towards wrapping up a case and I’ve got clients asking me all these questions about, well, what do I need to set up? How do I do that? Who do I talk to? What does this mean? Tax consequences. All these things that I can give a very 30,000 foot view of, but I don’t really necessarily feel comfortable giving legal advice beyond, yeah, you should talk to an estate lawyer or you should talk to a trust lawyer.

So just in general, is there any advice that you can give for PI lawyers? Let’s say we’ve just got a huge settlement in and now I’ve got a client who, and I’ll give this specific example because I feel like this is one that comes up often. We have clients who are on state benefits, Medicaid, SNAP, they’re receiving benefits, but they’re also about to come into a very large sum of money because they have suffered some type of injury. Is there anything in particular that I as the PI lawyer should be aware of, pitfalls, advice, strategy, just sort of generally, what do I need to think about?

Katie Krispin:

Yeah. So I think first and foremost, it’s important for, while estate planning and personal injury law seemingly so far apart is exactly as you said, it tends to run into one another and it’s kind of a slow moving process and then it happens quickly, right? Settlement happens and then clients want their money. And so the best thing that I can say would be just form that relationship early, put that in the ears of your clients to just say, “Okay, well, this is kind of what’s coming down the road. Let’s just start thinking about it. Just start thinking about it. Start talking about it at its most basic level so that when we get to that point where we’re at settlement, then it’s not, okay, we need to hurry up and figure out what to do because we want the money, but we want it protected.” And so that’s what I would say first and foremost, just form that relationship.

And then going a little bit deeper than that, I mean, yes, to your point, you do have to consider when clients receive this money, and for example, they are on Medicaid or other government benefits, can this sum of money render them ineligible to receive those benefits? When you apply for Medicaid, you cannot surpass a level of income per month. So you get a big sum of money, it’s going to render you ineligible like that. So the way to prevent that is think of different strategies. There’s different options. There’s never a one size fits all. That’s something that I always lead with estate planning. It sounds cliche, but it’s true. But there are options. There’s, do we create an irrevocable trust? So essentially you’re creating a trust to relinquish control of these assets so that they’re not considered yours to render you ineligible, right? There’s also spend down strategies so that you can … The Medicaid eligibility is going to be reviewed on a monthly basis.

So if you are able to spend down that money before that review happens, there would be no change in eligibility kind of thing. So that’s sort of at its most basic level, the strategies that you would navigate. And it’s just a client by client situation in terms of how much money are we coming into? What are their goals with that money? What are their circumstances? And how do they ultimately want to pass that money on after them? So besides eligibility concerns, these settlements can be pretty large. Typically, with the federal tax exemption right now in 2025 being 13.99 million, it’s pretty high. That’s per individual. And when I reference that, I’m saying that you could die with 13.99 million and it would be a tax-free estate, federally speaking.

Elizabeth McNulty:

So all of what you’ve been saying has me thinking for somebody like myself who does personal injury, at what point is it helpful? If we had questions for you or a client, we know a case and it might have a certain value, at what point is it helpful for us to reach out and get our clients maybe in contact with you? Is it like once we have the sum of money, do you like to form that relationship a little bit earlier? Or like what point do you find it for us to maybe say, “This is an area of law that’s better for somebody that specializes in estate planning.” At what point in that relationship do you like to, theoretically in an ideal world, get to meet that client?

Katie Krispin:

I would think that it would be helpful for you guys to have someone in mind or a few people in mind, because every client is, there’s a different type of estate planner for different types of clients. I can recognize that. I’m a woman, maybe some people want to go to men, I’m younger, maybe some people like to go to older individuals. So I would say just kind of like open up that conversation and not necessarily get the clients involved with the estate planner at that point. You could, but I think it becomes more important when we’re sort of nearing settlement and starting to think about that plan. The most important thing is like, how quickly do those clients want those funds? Because they want them now, then we need to figure out a strategy quick. And I think that when we’re thinking quicker, it can become a little more hectic.

But if we have some forethought and we see it coming down the pipe, we can address that. If it’s not so immediate, then I would say at the time of settlement is okay, but keeping in mind that we know it’s coming. So why wait?

Elizabeth Lenivy:

Can I ask you a question about timing? Because this is something that I faced a couple months ago. In this particular case, I was representing catastrophically injured child. There were some problems, I’ll say, I feel like that’s the most delicate way I can put it, some issues with the parents. The child himself was very sympathetic. The parents had some issues and my concern was that a jury was not going to understand where money that may have been awarded to the child, where that was going to go. And I could see a juror getting confused and thinking, “Well, I don’t want to give any money to these parents.” And so the strategy we took was before trial, and I had never done this before because I had never had this issue before, but setting up a special needs trust in the event that if money were to be awarded to the child at trial, which there hadn’t been any guarantees of anything yet, the special needs trust was already prepared, ready to go.

Day one, it could take the money and it was going to be protected for the child’s benefit. Have you had that experience or would you give that advice to a lawyer like myself facing that situation where you represent someone who is not necessarily in a position to advocate for themself, whether because they’re a minor or maybe they are deemed incompetent or incapacitated, and there’s someone else representing them on their behalf who may not necessarily, again, be the most sympathetic of characters, but trying to get a step ahead of that, that way when I get to trial, I can say, “Hey, you understand that there’s a trust already set up in this child’s name ready to go and that this money is protected for that child’s benefit.” Have you had that experience or would you give that advice to a lawyer?

Katie Krispin:

Yeah. I mean, I think that that strategy was correct. I mean, if you have these concerns, if that money were to be put in the parents’ hands and subject to however they want to provide for that child, that’s one thing. But the trust is going to say specifically, what’s happening? Who are the decision makers? Maybe the parents aren’t the decision makers. Maybe we have somebody else that would be more fiscally responsible with it. Even if the parents were ultimately the trustees of that trust, they are subject to their fiduciary duty within that trust. So it would say very clearly this is to be used for that, but I mean, you can make it as specific as you want. It holds them to that duty. If they violate that duty, there are consequences. Whereas if that wasn’t in place, we’d have serious concerns.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

Okay. Can I ask you, because this is another question I get often, especially whenever there is a minor client and we’re setting up a trust for them, and then the parents ask, “So I can use this money for my child.” Yes. Well, what does that mean? What can I tell my clients, at least generally, “You can use the money for X, Y, Z, but you can’t use the money for this. ” Oftentimes they’ll say, “Well, I would really love to take the child to Disney World. Can I take my child on vacation?” Or, “I need to buy them new school clothes. Can I get them new school clothes?” How does that work for where that money is permitted to go for the benefit of the child?

Katie Krispin:

That kind of depends on the level of discretion you would set out in the trust for the trustee. Do they have absolute discretion? Do you fine tune that even more? I’ve seen trusts where travel expenses is identified specifically. I think it just depends on the level of discretion that the trustee is given. And ultimately, you’re always kind of looking down for who’s going to complain, right? So part of estate planning is forecasting what comes down the pipe. I see potential issues all the time that probably never come to fruition because ultimately who’s going to complain? If nobody complains, then things happen as they do. But that being said, you’re always going to want to consider that. And that’s where the family dynamic becomes extremely important because the way that siblings in particular interact, I’m thinking about when the classic scenario of your parents pass away and they leave a certain sum of money to the children, whether evenly or percentage based, whatever, that’s the most common scenario I see.

And so it opens up a lot to sibling rivalries. Now, I’m only hearing the bad things, right? So more often than not, things are going to be fine, but I think that’s something that you really need to consider when your estate planning is thinking about your particular family dynamic and it becomes even more complex when there’s blended families, for example. And so, and that’s kind of too why ongoing estate planning is so important because yes, we can account for at this point in time how things are, but I mean, I’ve experienced it in my own personal life. Things change very quickly and in a quick span of years, you might view how you want things to go very differently. So ongoing estate planning is important. Family dynamic is really important. So I think you just have to kind of consider that. And I can’t predict everything that’s going to happen.

I say, pay attention to your family dynamic, but ultimately I have seen it where there are great estate plans written. And for example, brother and sister, something happens down the road where they end up in a litigation mess. And I think that took me a long time to figure out. I tried so hard to fix that dynamic, but I can’t do that. I can’t fix their relationship and how they feel about one another. I mean, I think you guys can relate to this a lot. You have to be empathetic to your clients. You’re dealing with them in very vulnerable situations, but ultimately what has happened has happened and we can advise them as best we can by the way that the law is written and also put that empathy in there too. And I know you guys are great lawyers. I’ve seen it. I’ve been a part of it.

I think that makes the best lawyers and I think that’s a superpower I’m going to generalize here, but women being naturally more empathetic or seen as more empathetic anyway, I think that’s a superpower and being able to use that with kind of that, okay, but here’s the actual objectivity of the situation and the realistic approach and incorporating that in there. Because ultimately, as you say, we’re dealing with people in the worst times of their lives. And so it’s just really important to be able to balance all of those emotions. It’s funny, there was one case that just had me down bad. I was just emotionally just, it was draining. I was getting the longest emails I’ve ever gotten in my life at 5:00 AM. I was waking up to those. I’m sure you guys have experienced this too. Like you get on the phone and the client just is going on and on.

And of course they’re in a vulnerable … And I think this particular situation, I was a little just frustrated by all of it. I was like, “Man, I didn’t go to law school to become a counselor.” Sure enough, I look up at my certificates and it says counselor at law. And so that was a pivotal moment for me and realizing that, no, I am meant to be a counselor in some respects and incorporating that empathy and not seeing it as I’m a weak or I feel these things too hard. It’s being able to harness it right for the client.

Katie St. John:

I love how you called it a superpower. I think that we talk about that a lot, like what sets us apart as attorneys being women. And I’m curious, you went out so low. We graduated from law school the same year, you went out solo, I would say so young. What made you want to get out there and go at it on your own?

Katie Krispin:

It was a lot of things, but I think I saw an opportunity. It actually started, I went to this women in business conference last summer, which I’m going this weekend again. And I wasn’t paying attention when I was there. I mean, I was like one of two women that were employed by others. And I never saw myself as an entrepreneur really. And I think that at that point in time, the seed was planted. And also at that point in time, I was really beginning to understand what was the purpose of everything I’m doing. It’s so easy in law school and out of law school, your first couple years at least, you’re just grinding. It feels like. For me, it felt like I was just grinding. And it’s great. I mean, it teaches you a lot of skills and you’re learning the law and I would never do that part differently.

But I think that at the same time of attending this conference, being around all these women that were so just owning their own business and I just had never been around that many women business owners, it was a combination of that and a combination of kind of lifting my head from the just mountain of paper in front of me and like realizing what I’m actually doing. What’s the purpose of all of this? I think that makes you a better lawyer. I mean, it makes you a better person. If you know why you’re doing something, then ultimately you’re going to do a better job at it, right? So that was kind of like an epiphany moment, me realizing to kind of look up and figure out how everything’s working together. And it just kind of one thing led to another. And it was, okay, well, I could go out on my own.

I could try to stay where I’m at and build that up. But it felt, it was like this just fire. I can’t explain it. I never expected it, but you just got to do it and just trust that you’ll figure it out and I’m still figuring it out, believe me. And I’m realizing I’m always going to be figuring it out. But I think it was just, I needed to do that because I’m someone that’s really good at taking direction. I think we all are. Tell me what to do, I’ll do it. And so it’s almost like I had to get out of my own way to be able to see what I was capable of as opposed to just doing what I’m told. And so that was ultimately what drove me out. I mean, there were a lot of people encouraging me. I struggle with self-confidence.

Maybe we all do in some respect, but it really just kind of was a progression. And when I was really, I don’t mean to sound so fufu, but like when I was paying attention to the signs and I’m doing quotation marks with my hands, they were there. So it’s reassurance and it keeps happening. So it keeps me in the game and shows me that I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing. And the hardest question for me to answer is where will I be in five years? But hopefully doing what I’m doing, but in a much bigger capacity so that ultimately I’m serving more people and those people being … Of course, I think when we think about estate planning, we kind of have a picture in our mind of who these clients would be, a little bit older adults, maybe their kids are grown and out of the house, maybe they’re thinking about retirement, but that was where I saw opportunity was that nobody was talking to younger generations.

I’m a millennial. I had never heard of a … Well, of course I took trust in estates. We see how well I paid attention there, but just no one … I was never considering estate planning, right? We’re young, we’re going to live forever, whatever. But that’s where I kind of saw the opportunity. I think people start to get more serious when they get married or when they have children. Maybe you acquire more assets, your retirement’s building at the point where you’re like in your early 30s kind of. I would say you’re getting real property that you have to protect. So estate planning is very important for the younger generations, but I just don’t know. I have not heard that being really talked about. So I wanted to hone in on that generation. Of course, I love to help everybody and I do help everybody, but I saw an opportunity there that I wanted to go after.

Well,

Katie St. John:

I think what you’re doing is very, very inspiring and incredibly admirable. I would find it absolutely terrifying, but you seem to be doing an awesome job. But I agree with you. It’s not something that I would consider needing an estate plan at 30 something. And I feel like the other people in the room and probably some listeners would agree. So what’s your pitch to people who are like, “Well, I’m going to live forever. I don’t need to think about that till maybe I have kids or my kids are out of the house.” What’s your pushback on that?

Katie Krispin:

Well, my best advocates are people that who have experienced situations within their own personal life. Maybe their parent died without an estate plan and now they have to go through that probate process that is just honestly the worst. And I do serve those clients and I appreciate serving them, but my whole goal with that is to avoid that completely, right? So I think there’s misconceptions behind estate planning that you have to have a ton of assets, that you have to have children. I think the hardest people to reach are probably young, single people. And they’re like, “Well, I have a few bank accounts.” Well, maybe I have a house, but they don’t think about the people coming behind them. And that’s ultimately, we’re trying to avoid this process at a time when people are at the worst points in their lives. So single people, your parents.

I, of course, don’t know. I hope I never experienced this, but losing a child is probably one of the worst things that could ever happen to you. Your parents are going to have to figure out these assets, which may not even matter to them, but it’s there and it was yours and they would want it to go somewhere important while they’re grieving the death of their child. So I think that’s important for single people to keep in mind. Of course, if you have children, setting up your estate plan so that you’re, who’s going to take care of your children if anything were to happen to you and your spouse. And I know that we’re talking about things that we think will never happen, but I’ve seen plenty of young people who are now just dealing with mess, a total mess. And so it’s just, that’s what I have to keep reminding people of.

And I think that there’s a huge benefit to experience. And as I say, if you experience it, then you really know and understand how much it sucks. But just trying to keep reminding people of that and what could happen is where I start.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

I was 22 when my dad passed away, and there was a lot of that responsibility for handling the phone calls and all of the arrangements and the insurance company. There’s just so much you have to do when someone passes away, but my dad did have an estate plan set up, and so that was just one less thing that we had to worry about. And it’s difficult to explain that to a young person. And I’ll say, I did not think about estate planning at all until I got married. And then suddenly I thought, okay, well, now my life and my finances are directly tied to another person. We need to make sure that we are on the same page and that the other is going to be taken care of in the event something unimaginable does actually happen. So I think that that’s a really important thing to talk about.

There’s a target audience that you’re trying to reach out to. I think that that’s really noble, but also very business smart.

Katie Krispin:

I appreciate that. Yeah. I’m working on it. It’s hard. I mean, it’s a hard audience to reach, but I think that that’s another great point. I heard this somewhere, but people in there between the age of 25 and 45 are sort of in that hourglass generation where we’re forming our own families, right? So we have to set up an estate plan so that our kids are protected and spouses and things like that. And we’re also worrying about our parents. Do they have it set up? Because most likely you are going to be the one that’s dealing with the repercussions of not having an estate plan, a poorly executed estate plan. So I mean, if you think about it from a what’s in it for me approach, I mean, shoot, there’s a lot to consider from both ends. So yeah, I think that that’s important. And also estate planning does … I think it’s so often thought of this mountain of documents and just kind of something we don’t know anything about.

You guys have all done estate planning. I mean, if you have a retirement account with a beneficiary listed on there, you’ve done estate planning. Beneficiary designation is just the smallest step toward that. So I kind of want to get people thinking about that too, is that we don’t have to think about, because trusts are so often thought about as, “Oh, I need to have tons of money to have a trust.” But it’s not really thinking about the amount of assets, although that does become important when you’re talking about specialized planning for taxes and things like that. But it’s really just, do I have the simplest thing in place so that I can avoid this completely unnecessary process? Because if you have a beneficiary listed on a retirement asset, you’re keeping it out of that probate process. And I know I keep coming back to that probate process, but it is brutal.

So-

Elizabeth Lenivy:

And when you say probate process, for those who may not know what you’re referring to, I mean, what does that mean?

Katie Krispin:

So the probate process, generally speaking, is if you have assets in your name alone at the time that you pass away, those assets have to be administered through a court process in order to be distributed to your next of kin. So that process is basically, you hire a lawyer, a lawyer has to You be the one to open up the estate. You hire a lawyer, you file all these documents, you then wait on the court to either appoint the person who filed as the administrator, or maybe there’s others to consider. I mean, maybe there’s contested applications for what would be letters of administration or orders admitting the will. I mean, maybe there’s conflict there. So that’s where an estate plan would be really important to name someone specifically you want in charge. But it would be, like I say, getting the court to ultimately appoint somebody to administer that estate.

There’s procedural requirements with it. You would have to file an inventory, which if you have assets over 450,000, which sounds like a lot, but I mean, think about your real property. That’s just right there alone is a $450 inventory filing fee just for that. So it’s just these unnecessary fees. It’s that process. It’s the possibility of conflict between families and just kind of meeting all of these requirements. That’s generally what probate is, and there’s a lot of nuances involved there, but let’s stay out of probate.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

Okay. So you had mentioned that some strategies for in particular people who may be on government benefits and don’t want to lose those benefits, a strategy may be an irrevocable trust and/or a spend down. So I want to take a minute to talk about what you mean by those terms. And mostly so that when the next time I get asked about it by a client, I am telling them the correct thing. So starting with an irrevocable trust, what does that mean?

Katie Krispin:

So an irrevocable trust is a trust at its core is a trust that you are setting aside particular assets that you fund into the trust, but you are relinquishing control of that trust. So you might see it in contrast with a revocable trust. And a revocable trust is that you create a trust that you have full control of until the event that you have become incapacitated. But your revocable is that you don’t have that control so that it’s not seen as yours from the government or creditors or other parties that would come in and try to infiltrate that.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

Okay. And so then I’m thinking about the situations. And when we say irrevocable trust, is this the same thing as, for example, a special needs trust? Because that’s the term I use more often, I feel.

Katie Krispin:

Yes. A special needs trust is a type of irrepocable trust.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

Okay. So then I have a client who is a Medicaid recipient. She cannot lose her Medicaid. I say, “We’re going to set up a special needs trust and then you can work with your trustee when you may need the money.” And then the next question becomes, “Well, how do I work with that trustee and when will they give me the money and what is the process for that? ” So can you explain to our listeners what exactly that means for the individual receiving the money for the client when we’re setting up a special needs trust for that?

Katie Krispin:

So again, going back to pick someone that can do the job well, the trustee is not to take guidance from who would be the beneficiary necessarily, but where you’re working together is setting up that trust. So you’re picking the right person, you’re creating those parameters and determining the trustee’s discretion, but ultimately how those distributions are to be made is coming from the trust itself. That’s why it’s important to carefully calculate how you want all that to go within there.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

Okay. And so is it a situation … Again, I’m thinking about my client asking me these questions and very fairly asking me the questions of, well, how do I access my money? I know it’s going to go into the trust and I know we’re doing that for my benefit and my protection, but how do I access that money when I need my car breaks down and I need a new car? Or the last case I can think of, my client desperately needed new furniture. She had actually gotten rid of all of her old furniture because it was just so worn down and ragged. And she basically just had a lawn chair in her living room. This woman needed new furniture. And I instructed her, “Well, that’s something you need to talk to the trust about. ” But then I realized, I don’t know what that conversation looks like.

So is that just her picking up the phone, calling the trustee and saying, “I need X, Y, Z.” And then that trustee makes that determination?

Katie Krispin:

Yeah. I mean, I think it could be a request to the trustee. So most of these situations are pretty amicable and you set it up that way. So you make a request and usually it’s set up so that that happens pretty easily. But could there be issues with that? There always could be issues. So I think just again, being very careful in who you select as that decision maker. But yeah, I mean, it’s as simple as making a request for that particular thing and it’s guided by that trust. And I mean, if there was the alternative of a conservatorship, so you’re within the court system, let’s say a minor comes into money, but they’re not in Missouri, the Asia majority is 18, so they’re not 18. The state doesn’t see them fit to handle this amount of money. That conservatorship, I mean, you have to make the conservator works with the court to make these calls on, is this furniture within the standard that basic maintenance that this person would need?

So instead of the court being the decision maker, the trustee is. So that’s just kind of a sidebit that there is that alternative process that happens within the court, but ultimately the idea is that we’re not subjecting it to that process and spending the money that’s required within there. We appoint the right trustee and make those requests and then it happens very easily.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

Okay. And then the other thing that you mentioned is a spend down. And I have a general idea of what a spend down is, but for those who may not be aware or may not be familiar with that particular strategy, can you explain to us what a spend down is? I mean,

Katie Krispin:

It’s basically like before that 30 days, you want to spend down as much as you can. So if you know you want to buy a house, buy it now. It just, again, depends on your circumstances and your goals. Because

Elizabeth Lenivy:

I’ve had this happen before where I’ve had a client say, “Okay, I know I’m getting this amount of money. I know I need to put this money into a trust to protect my benefits, but I really need to buy this house now. We’re about to sign on it. I need the money.” So that person can take that money immediately out of the settlement, put it towards some large purchase, whether it’s a house or a car or whatever it is they may need in the immediate, and that will not count against them for income-based purposes when they are re-upping or being checked over for government benefits like Medicaid.

Elizabeth McNulty:

Correct.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

Okay.

Elizabeth McNulty:

Okay. So Katie, do you have anything to say for those listeners who might be on the fence on whether or not they need to contact an estate planning attorney like yourself? What would you say to them?

Katie Krispin:

Yeah, so I would say in your guys’ area of the law, forge those relationships now. I think we all are better attorneys when we have resources to provide for our clients and be able to understand the full picture of it and talk generally. And then we don’t know what we don’t know, so then pass it along. But we’re a team. And in terms of personally, if you’re considering estate planning, absolutely do it. If you’re not, absolutely do it. So to have those conversations now, I think it’s really easy to put on the back burner. I mean, full disclosure, I got my estate plan done two years ago, so I’m not going to sit here and preach and pretend like I’ve got it when I was 18 and all this stuff, but my goal is just to really get people talking about it now, talking about … It’s really easy for me to talk about death, honestly, because we just deal with it so often.

And I know that’s a really hard conversation for people to have, but I think just talking about it is just so important. I mean, it’s not if, it’s when. So it’s really just having those conversations when things aren’t really hectic or emotional and you’re out at dinner, you’re talking about everything else, just say, “What should we do if anything happened? Or who’s going to take care of me? Do I want to be buried or cremated?” Just casual conversation at a dinner table. So I think that just planting the seed now is really important for me for people so that they can avoid what could be a really messy situation down the road.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

Well, Katie, thank you so much for joining us and for imparting all of this wisdom and information for us. I know I certainly feel more empowered in having these conversations with my clients and also knowing where I can direct them when this inevitably this issue comes up. And thank you all for joining us for another episode of Heals in the Courtroom. Remember, new episodes drop every other Wednesday, and if you’d like to join the conversation, you can reach us at [email protected]. Bye guys.

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