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Message from the
President
John P. Garniewski, Jr., CPA/PFS,
CFP®, AEP®
Family Office Solutions, LLC
Wilmington, DE
Dear Members & Friends:
What a year this has been! With just three months left of my presidency, I am
exceptionally proud of the accomplishments of the
board of directors, many of
which you can learn more about within this newsletter. I'd like to highlight
some of those activities in more detail within this note, however.
If there is one word to describe NAEPC this year it is simply "innovative."
The association, your association, has been nimble with its approach to all of
its key activities, transforming each into a new and unique format, including:
- The 57th Annual NAEPC Advanced
Estate Planning Strategies Conference is taking place virtually and will
provide an experience that reaches beyond a typical Zoom call. Best of all,
the program is being offered to members and guests complimentary thanks to
the generous support of sponsors and exhibitors. Read more about this
exciting conference within this newsletter. This event is expected to set
attendance records and will also accommodate the association's annual
meeting and election of officers and the presentation of the Hartman Axley
Lifetime Service Award. I share my personal thanks with Lawrence J. Macklin
and Richard K. MacBarron for their exceptional leadership of the Conference
Committee this year.
- Activities designed to support the leadership of the 275 councils
affiliated with NAEPC, including
Regional
Leadership Day, Council Leadership Day, and
Council of Excellence Award Ceremony, have all taken place or are
scheduled to take place via Zoom. I thank Kit Mac Nee, Michael P. Panebianco
and David Green for their leadership on these projects and for hosting a
combined and record-setting 19 EVENTS designed to help councils
thrive today and into tomorrow!
- A very special event for active
Accredited Estate Planner® designees and
Estate
Planning Law Specialist certificants on Wednesday, December 2, 2020.
While this event typically occurs in person at the annual conference, we are
planning a virtual program with the help of the members of the NAEPC Estate
Planning Hall of Fame® that is sure to provide a unique experience and
exceed expectations! Active designees will receive information about this
event very soon via email. We will also be recognizing the 2020 entrants
into the NAEPC Estate Planning Hall of Fame® at this event. Remember, it's
not too late to submit your application to become an AEP® designee or EPLS
certificant and to be eligible to attend!
 We have also had the good fortune to be able to continue to focus on our
regular activities, including publication of the
NAEPC Journal of Estate & Tax Planning
and National Estate Planning Awareness Week. Interest in the NAEPC Journal of
Estate & Tax Planning continues to grow; your readership is appreciated. The
new issue offers a perfect opportunity to reach out and share this complimentary
and valuable resource with colleagues using the links provided at
www.naepcjournal.org. Don't forget to
mention how easy it is to subscribe!
National Estate
Planning Awareness Week is also just around the corner. Please also share
information about the October 19-25, 2020 event with colleagues and friends.
Finally, NAEPC is in search of professionals in the states of California,
Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Nevada, New York, Texas and Virginia who
have contacts at the Secretary of State office and who are willing to assist in
a campaign to have each of the 50 states adopt electronic apostille, which is
similar to remote online notarization. Apostilles are issued when an individual
needs to prove the authenticity of a document in a foreign jurisdiction, such as
an adoption certificate, a divorce decree, a birth certificate, a trust
agreement or the like. Interested parties should contact NAEPC President-Elect
William D. Kirchick at 617-439-2157 or
wkirchick@nutter.com as soon as possible.
In closing, although this has been an extremely different year, it has been a
very rewarding year for NAEPC. We feel more connected to our membership than
ever before and look forward to carrying that momentum into 2021 while remaining
committed to your health, safety, and education.
57th Annual NAEPC Advanced Estate Planning Strategies
Virtual Conference—Complimentary for Members & Guests
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Be Part of Something BIG
November 10, 2020 — 11:30 am ET - 5:00 pm ET |
The 57th Annual NAEPC Advanced Estate Planning Strategies Virtual Conference
brings nationally-recognized speakers right to your desk and provides an
opportunity to cultivate your national network of estate planning professionals.
The conference is for every member of every estate planning council and all
estate planning professionals and offers an experience that goes beyond a Zoom
meeting. Join us to hear from industry leaders and NAEPC Estate Planning Hall of
Fame® members:
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Martin M. Shenkman, CPA/PFS, MBA, JD, AEP® (Distinguished)
Richard M. Weber, MBA, CLU®, AEP® (Distinguished)
Natalie B. Choate, Esq., AEP® (Distinguished) |
View the full schedule of events on our website.
(1).png) Registration
Due to the incredibly generous support of our sponsors and exhibitors, this
program is complimentary for members and guests. Those who register and are
unable to attend are asked to cancel on or before Friday, November 6, 2020.
Learn more about the program and register at
www.NAEPC.org/conference.
We are extremely grateful for the generous support that allows us to offer
this conference to you free-of-charge. Please visit with the sponsoring and
exhibiting firms during the conference or learn more about the following
sponsors now by clicking each logo below:
 
We are also grateful for the supporters that planned on being
with us at the in-person 57th Annual Conference and have agreed to join us
next year in Las Vegas, Nevada for the 58th Annual Conference, especially those
sponsors at the Premier, Partner, and several at the "Your Way" level of
support. We encourage you to continue to familiarize yourself with these
organizations throughout the year, and to reach out to them as needs arise.
Premier Sponsor
Partner Sponsors
 
 
"Your Way" Sponsors
 
 
The Collaboration Corner
Brought to you by the NAEPC
Multi-Disciplinary Teaming Committee
 The
Collaboration Corner within this issue recounts how one estate planning
professional worked with a couple to initiate and lead an effective
collaborative experience using the NAEPC Model for Collaboration, and
the 5 Critical Best Practices articulated in the NAEPC white paper "High-Performance
Teaming and Professional Collaboration."
First, I initiated the conversation with the couple. I enumerated many of the
benefits to forming a high-performance team and embracing an explicit process
for collaboration. They quickly agreed that doing so would make perfect sense.
We discussed each of their existing advisors, why they trusted them and how they
had worked with them in the past. In this case, we all agreed to use their
existing advisors.
Second, we provided our clients with the tools and resources, in the form of
an email message, enabling them to reach out to their existing advisors, and
asked the clients to copy us on the email.
Third, we reached out to each of the advisors right away to schedule a
face-to-face appointment to reinforce how important they each were to their
clients, and how much we were looking forward to working together with them. We
discussed the process to make sure they were comfortable, and to solicit any new
ideas. This part of the process was really beneficial for us, because we had
never worked with any of these advisors, and this gave us an opportunity to get
to know them, and to work with them in a different way than they had ever
experienced before. We were able to differentiate our team from others they had
worked with in the past.
Coordinating the strategy session was cumbersome. We found that oftentimes
the advisors wouldn't respond quickly to new scheduling technology, so we had to
reach out by email, and then telephone if necessary. We tried to schedule
upcoming meetings in advance to get them on calendars.
What was interesting about our first strategy session was how only two of
them knew any of the others, and had ever worked together. So, we were all
getting to know each other, and working together for the first time. There was a
real camaraderie around the whole experience.
This was a complex case, and having each of the advisors in the same room
provided invaluable resources. We had done the deep discovery in advance of the
first meeting, so we could articulate in simple, clear and concise terms what
the couple was trying to accomplish. There were a lot of moving pieces and
parts. By having everyone there, we were moving much faster, and achieving more
success.
We got along well, but there was a disagreement between me and the insurance
advisor. We wanted to reach consensus, but couldn't. So, we decided to present
both strategies, enunciating the costs and benefits, advantages and
disadvantages of each. There was really no right or wrong answer, so we thought
it would be useful for the clients to see both.
The accountant seemed somewhat distant from the process, but was willing to
answer questions when asked. Once again, the case involved dynamic complexity,
where decisions we made today in our own silos would have had different
consequences over time, and in different parts of the system, so we had to do
much multi-scenario modeling. I can't imagine how much work would have been
involved to coordinate the planning any other way.
We came up with ideas together that I simply would not have come up with on
my own. On the other hand, there were strategies and solutions I would have
recommended, but it was comforting to get confirmation from the team that I
would have been on the right track.
All of the advisors attended the presentation, and we had determined our
roles and responsibilities in advance. Because we were all on the same page, the
clients were very comfortable to follow our advice, and they could understand
why it made sense in the context of what they were trying to achieve.
It was a lot of work for me, as the leader, to coordinate and facilitate the
collaboration, but well worth the time and effort. We have experience and
expertise, and a compensation structure that supports playing a leadership role
in this way.
We now have a working relationship with a number of new advisors, and our
clients have enjoyed a raving fans experience. I would anticipate receiving
introductions or referrals from advisors or clients in the future as a result.
In the final analysis, this was a "win, win, win" for our group, all of the
other advisors, and most importantly for our clients. From my experience, the
process is clumsy at first, but only because it's new. Now that I've done this a
few times, I've figured out better ways, and can anticipate some of the issues
and challenges we will face. We have been getting better and better at this as
we go along. And we learn from other advisors each time we go through it. By
doing so, I have been able to develop more and better relationships, and grow
and evolve as an advisor.
From my perspective, a multidisciplinary team approach is critical for
getting best results for my clients. In fact, I would go so far as saying not
doing so could create an ethical dilemma. I am looking forward to continuing to
develop my process over time.
Member Benefits
NAEPC is excited to welcome Tracers—Investigative Legal Research Software to
our dynamic list of member benefit and discount providers. View a list of
all
member benefits on our website.
Tracers—Investigative Legal Research Software
 Tracers,
the #1 trusted cloud-based investigative search software, is designed to
help you find key pieces of information available only in public and
personal records. Since 1996, Tracers has provided estate planning firms,
independent lawyers, and process servers access to an online database of
over 42 billion records — from over 86,000 sources of data! With U.S. based
dedicated account managers on call to help you with any detailed private or
public record search, Tracers has become a key
legal research tool for estate and probate attorneys and their clients.
Powerful features for estate planning & probate attorneys include:
- Cloud-based software accessible from any device
- Easy-to-use interface with search history and permissions
- Property records search to find contact information for
beneficiaries
- Skip tracing to construct a family tree or locate lost heirs
- Powerful asset search to help create a paper trail
- Validate wills and probate concerns
- Up-to-date address history search
- iPhone and Android apps
- Much, much more!
NAEPC members are eligible for a 10% discount on all Tracers search
services.
Sign up risk risk-free and your first $100 in searches is on us!
For a list of all benefits available to members of NAEPC and our affiliated
local councils, please visit our website or click on the categories below.
Who We Are
Reflections on the Values of NAEPC
By James M. Knaus, CFP®, CLU®, ChFC®, AEP®, RICP, MSM
 Almost
four decades ago, I was encouraged to join the
Financial and Estate Planning
Council of Metropolitan Detroit. At the time, I was a Trust Officer with a
major bank, and began a long-term, positive, fruitful and rewarding relationship
with literally dozens of other qualified professionals.
My initial observations and favorable opinions of my new Council colleagues
were continually reinforced. The spirit of open collaboration with others for
the benefit of our mutual clients persists to this day. Networking opportunities
continue to grow, while educational offerings entertain and augment my
understanding of constantly changing aspects of comprehensive financial and
estate planning.
Upon reflection, I can't think of a better professional organization. I'm
truly indebted.
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