Pam Starsia (00:00):

A lot of people in that situation do not need the money they’re going to inherit, right. It’s part of their parents’ legacy and they, they love and they respect it, but they don’t need it financially.

Pam Starsia (00:11):

And one of the things I try to do is encourage people, if you’re in that situation, pay for help, please. You can pay people to do everything. And I think there’s a sense of, it’s personal obviously, and we want to honor that. But you do not have to be the one cleaning up the house and changing the locks and right …

Pam Starsia (00:37):

If you have the resources to pay for help, pay for help because you deserve it. And if you don’t feel like you’re getting the help you need, you say your friend, the lawyer, says you deserve better.

Stephanie McCullough (00:51):

I like it.

[Music Playing]

Stephanie McCullough (00:59):

Hey, dear listeners, we need to let you know that Kevin and Stephanie offer investment advice through Private Advisor Group, which is a federally registered investment advisor. The opinions voiced in this podcast are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations to any individual. To determine which strategies or investments may be suitable for you. Consult the appropriate qualified professional prior to making a decision. Now, let’s get on with the show.

Stephanie McCullough (01:34):

This is Take Back Retirement, the show that’s redefining retirement for women. Retirement is an old-fashioned cultural concept. We want to reclaim the word so you can make it your own. I’m Stephanie McCullough, financial planner and founder of Sofia Financial, where our mission is to reduce women’s money stress and empower them to make wise holistic decisions so they can get back to living their best lives.

Kevin Gaines is my longtime colleague with deep knowledge in the technical stuff: investments, taxes, retirement plan rules. He’s a little bit giggy and quantitative, I’m a little bit touchy-feely and qualitative. Together, through conversations and interviews, we aim to give you the information and motivation you need to move forward with confidence. We’re so glad you’re here.

Stephanie McCullough (02:23):

Coming to you semi live from the beautiful Westlakes Office Park in suburban Philadelphia, this is Stephanie McCullough and Kevin Gaines of Sofia Financial and American Financial Management Group. Say hello, Kevin.

Kevin Gaines (02:33):

Hello, Kevin.

Stephanie McCullough (02:35):

Today, we’re going to introduce you to a new friend, our friend the lawyer, Pam Starsia. Pam was born and raised in Saratoga County, New York. She went to Princeton for her undergrad at Georgetown for law school. She’s been practicing law from 2006, but as you’ll hear, she made quite a significant shift along the way.

Stephanie McCullough (02:55):

She now has Starsia Law with her law partner, her husband, and her main focus is to serve as a trusted advisor for life to her clients. Let’s get into our conversation with Pam.

[Music Playing]

Stephanie McCullough (03:14):

Pam Starsia, welcome to Take Back Retirement.

Pam Starsia (03:17):

Hello.

Stephanie McCullough (03:18):

We’re so happy to talk to you today.

Pam Starsia (03:20):

I’m so happy to talk to you.

Stephanie McCullough (03:22):

Okay. So, can you tell us a little bit of your origin story? You always, you didn’t grow up wanting to be an estate planning attorney. How did you come to be doing this work?

Pam Starsia (03:31):

I did not grow up wanting to be an estate planning attorney. I actually did not really think about this as a serious area of law or at all really? I was a corporate lawyer at a big firm. I did mergers and acquisitions, right.

Pam Starsia (03:50):

And I did not think about this at all until my parents and my husband’s parents, and actually my husband’s grandmother — Grandma Helen, is turning 101 next month.

Stephanie McCullough (04:04):

I love that.

Pam Starsia (04:05):

And I really started thinking about it when she– they were trying to update her planning and she had a kind of complex financial situation. She had some trusts left by her husband and a shared family property here in upstate New York, up in the Adirondacks. Been in the family for a hundred years.

Pam Starsia (04:25):

So, the family was working with her to try to update her planning documents. And then at the same time, my parents and Joe’s parents were thinking about getting their planning in place because we were talking about it.

Pam Starsia (04:38):

And the thing, the one thing that really set me down the path to feeling like there had to be a better way to do the legal side of estate planning was we were with Grandma Helen’s lawyer and the subject had come up for this shared family property. In upstate New York, we call them camps.

Stephanie McCullough (05:03):

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve been to a couple. They’re amazing.

Pam Starsia (05:05):

Any place that is near a lake and in the woods is a camp. And so, this camp, it’s beautiful. It’s over 60 acres up in the Adirondack State Park. Been in the family for a hundred generations, but it’s always had one owner in each generation [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah].

Pam Starsia (05:21):

And when Helen passes away, it will for the first time go into a generation where there are going to be six. There are going to be six siblings who have the type of complicated relationships that siblings have [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yes] sharing ownership of this property.

Pam Starsia (05:40):

So, the lawyer who is doing the planning set up all the technical things that you know we can talk about, all the tools. And he set up an LLC, and we’re putting the property in the LLC. And the magic words in the LLC operating agreement are beautiful, they’re fine. But he never asked the question of, is this a good idea?

Pam Starsia (06:04):

Is this a good idea to have six siblings try to own property jointly together and navigate all the complexities of shared property, which is a facet? So, that actually has become one of my niche areas because you know you could write volumes on the drama.

Stephanie McCullough (06:26):

Yes, yes. Inevitable drama, right?

Pam Starsia (06:28):

Of shared family property. But there is a way to do it well.

Pam Starsia (06:31):

And yeah, so, I had that, I had that situation and then I started looking more critically at what was being set up just for our parents, less complicated financial situation. But still, I have a brother and is my brother going to feel hurt or slighted that I am named as the executor and the healthcare proxy and the power of attorney because I’m older and that’s who you name first, like.

Pam Starsia (07:02):

And so, I felt like everyone was getting these very cookie cutter plans that were going to leave a mess, going to leave probates that I had to deal with.

Stephanie McCullough (07:12):

Yes, you being the oldest and the lawyer.

Pam Starsia (07:14):

Yes! And a lawyer, right. And so, I’m guessing you’ve talked about probate on the podcast.

Stephanie McCullough (07:20):

A little bit, yeah.

Pam Starsia (07:21):

But it’s court, so some people want to avoid it and I wanted to avoid it. And yeah, I just didn’t like the way–I didn’t like the options we were being given for planning. So, I started looking for people who were doing it better. And I didn’t find anyone local to us but I did find …

Pam Starsia (07:39):

So, we have three attorneys in our firm right now. All of us are trained in what’s called the Personal Family Lawyer Model. And it is a network a, growing network of attorneys who are trained to practice estate planning in a sort of more holistic, deeper relational model where we’re not just looking at the end of the day we’re not just looking at who ends up with your stuff after you die.

Pam Starsia (08:06):

We’re looking at your family situation, your financial situation, your family dynamic, sort of opening the kimono, right when we’re developing the plan so that we can really develop a plan that works for your family, keeps everyone out of court, out of conflict.

Pam Starsia (08:24):

And then we also, want to make sure that we have a plan for regularly reviewing and updating and checking in on your plan over time, not just to keep your plan up to date. We  need –As your life changes and your assets change and the law changes, we need to update your plan potentially.

Pam Starsia (08:44):

But also, within the Personal Family Lawyer Model, our goal is to really develop that lifetime advisor relationship with our clients so they have someone to help them make good decisions throughout their lifetime. And they know that their family will be taken care of in as close of the way that they would have taken care of their people themselves after they’re gone when they need us.

Pam Starsia (09:14):

And so, it really is trying to bring the legal advising more in line with the way that we believe financial advising should be done and in a way that I think is aligned with how you think about it.

Stephanie McCullough (09:30):

Yeah. I mean, so many people think, “Oh, if I call the lawyer or even email the lawyer, the clock starts ticking and then they’re going to cha-ching, cha-ching, it’s going to cost me a fortune so I won’t even ask.” That’s one of the barriers to doing stuff.

Pam Starsia (09:44):

Yes. And so, actually that’s a great observation. One of the things within our model is we don’t bill hourly. Like we never bill hourly. Partly because if you know what you’re doing, you should know, we know what it costs for us to be able to provide the service that we want to provide. So, we don’t need to be doing it hourly.

Pam Starsia (10:07):

But I think more importantly, it’s exactly what you said. If you aren’t sure about whether you’re going to get a bill in the mail for two tenths of an hour [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah], you’re not going to pick up the phone. And it’s not because of the money. I have seen very high net worth people leave terrible messes because they didn’t pick up the phone to ask the question. And I think it’s just that mental barrier.

Stephanie McCullough (10:35):

Yeah. It’s not that they couldn’t afford the bill, but that like it just feels icky.

Pam Starsia (10:39):

Yeah. And I think there’s an element of lawyers, like we are the fun killers. We are not, we are not historically kind, warm, and fuzzy people often. And I think we have to acknowledge that for a lot of people, no one’s ever going to the lawyer for a fun reason usually [Stephanie McCullough overcross: right].

Pam Starsia (11:04):

Right! And so, when people come to see us, hmm it can feel scary or intimidating and you know we have to acknowledge that and work with it. And yes, some people just don’t want to call the lawyer because they’ve had a bad experience with a lawyer in the past or just don’t like lawyers in general.

Stephanie McCullough (111:26):

It feels like to me, one of the reasons clients don’t do the planning is the emotional aspect, right.

Stephanie McCullough (11:31):

Like, wait, first of all, I have to acknowledge that I’m mortal and then my spouse hopefully will be devastated if I’m gone, and what am I going to do with my kids, and how on earth do I make things even? And fair is not always equal and equals not always fair.

Stephanie McCullough (11:47):

–How do you–And I would say maybe traditionally that the lawyers don’t do the emotional stuff. As you say, you’re not traditionally warm and fuzzy people. How do you address that part and try to kind of take down that barrier to actually doing the work?

Pam Starsia (12:02):

I mean, it takes time, it takes more time. I think one of the things is you know–in our model that helps with that is because we know that we’re not going to only get one bite at the apple. We’re gonna–So, bare minimum, every plan we do, we’re reaching out to check in and look at everything and make sure everything still makes sense at least every three years. What we tell people in our system is we’re not trying to design a plan today that necessarily has to work in 10 or 20 years. Like it doesn’t have to be the perfect plan forever. Let’s just get something on paper that we know is going to be better than the nothing we have now, or-

Stephanie McCullough (12:53):

Yeah. Or the 10-year-old plan you have now.

Pam Starsia (12:55):

Yeah. Let’s get something on paper that will be better than what we have now, knowing that worst case, the longest stretch of time we will go without checking in on this is three years. So, what decision would you be happy with for the next three years?

Stephanie McCullough (13:11):

Yeah, that’s nice. That makes it less kind of scary, I think.

Pam Starsia (13:15):

Yeah. And I think especially with people who have minor kids or young adult kids, and we don’t … I mean, first of all, it’s the worst thing in the world that you can ask someone to think about is who’s going to take care of your kids if you can’t. And acknowledging that there’s no good outcome in that situation. We’re just trying to get the least bad outcome.

Pam Starsia (13:40):

And you’re new with kids or it comes up with grandkids too. Obviously, things change so fast. And so, knowing that you are not going to have to keep it in your head to remember who you named as your guardian.

Pam Starsia (13:55):

And it is wild because I do this for a living and also, I didn’t have my planning done until I was running this business for two years.

Stephanie McCullough (14:06):

Really?

Pam Starsia (14:08):

Yeah, because we’re all massive procrastinators.

Stephanie McCullough (14:12):

Especially with something that feels so uncomfortable.

Pam Starsia (14:14):

Yeah. So, that’s part of our job is to help people get over that procrastination. And so, the way that our system is designed, we kind of bribe people along the way to do … so, our initial meeting is two hours. It’s two hours of one-on-one lawyer time is, we value that at at least $750. And–But you can get that meeting for free if you do some home, we call it your homework ahead of time.

Pam Starsia (14:50):

And all it is is going through and making a list of what you have and where it is. And for some people that’s really hard, but that means you have to do it, right [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah]. And some people can’t do it and that’s okay. But that shows us that we need help. Because if it’s hard for you to make that list now, imagine how hard it is-

Stephanie McCullough (15:15):

For whoever you leave behind right or if you’re incapacitated.

Pam Starsia (15:20):

Yeah, if you’re not here. And if someone has a great advisor, that’s obviously, you’ve done a lot of that work ahead of time, but we still make the clients to do it themselves because there are things that we know have the potential to cause problems or things that you care about that maybe just, I’ve never thought to tell my advisor about.

Pam Starsia (15:44):

And especially Stephanie, we were talking a little bit about personal property, like sentimental items. And that-

Stephanie McCullough (15:53):

I think that’s an issue. Like if there’s a family heirloom, there’s probably only one of them and you might have three kids and then what?

Pam Starsia (15:59):

Yes. And it’s not something that your advisor, your financial advisor necessarily thinks to ask about because you guys have a lot to do.

Pam Starsia (16:10):

But it is, especially in — well, I was going to say in sort of traditional nuclear families, but actually it’s both in blended families, it can cause a lot of conflict and then in any family, right. It’s sort of easy to plan for, but we just have to think about it ahead of time.

Stephanie McCullough (16:30):

Is it easy to plan for? Like who’s going to get grandma’s piano? How do you plan for that?

Pam Starsia (16:35):

I don’t wanna say, So, there’s actually, the way that I started learning about planning for personal property is there is — I think she’s a psychologist or a sociologist, I can’t remember. And I wish I have a thing.

Pam Starsia (16:50):

Anyway, there’s a woman at University of Minnesota who writes and does a lot of work on passing on personal property. And she has a book and a little video called Who Gets Grandma’s Yellow Pie Plate?

Pam Starsia (17:06):

And so, we, with our clients, we actually send that out every year around like right before Thanksgiving and-

Stephanie McCullough (17:15):

Where you’re going to be using the pie plate.

Pam Starsia (17:17):

Yeah. And you’re going to be sitting around the table and sort of killing time to some extent. And we remind people like, oh, this is a great time to look around and see if there are any items that people care about.

Pam Starsia (17:30):

Because if I am a young adult and my parents ask me, “Is there– Do you want anything when we die, right?” My knee jerk reaction is always, “No, throw it out. I don’t want anything.” Not in every family, but-

Stephanie McCullough (17:48):

Depending on the generation kind of. Right?

Pam Starsia (17:50):

Right. But if you’re in the space with the stuff, we have found that that helps people think about it a little more differently.

Stephanie McCullough (17:58):

Right. Like, “I’ve always loved that chair,” or something or whatever.

Pam Starsia (18:02):

Yeah, yeah. Or the name of her book is from a real example. There was this pie plate that was going to cause a fight in this one family. But I had a client who … when clients come into us and we ask them, is there anything your kids are going to care about? They always say no. “Like, Nobody cares. Nobody cares.” And I have them go home and ask the kids.

Pam Starsia (18:27):

Right! And I had a client who, when he came back for his next meeting, he had talked to his kids and it turned out that they both, the only thing they both cared about was they wanted one of his lasagna pans. We’re in upstate New York, big Italian population here.

Pam Starsia (18:45):

He had inherited two lasagna pans from his grandmother that they had gone down and they had such strong memories of him making Sunday lasagna. And they both really wanted a lasagna pan. And thank God there’s two kids and two lasagna pans, so we didn’t have to-

Stephanie McCullough (19:04):

Can’t chop it in half.

Kevin Gaines (19:06):

That’s a lucky break.

Pam Starsia (19:07):

So, that one worked out. But so, it’s not just the thing, right. Like I don’t know that these kids would’ve gotten a fight over lasagna pan, right. I like to think we would all work it out. But the family had the experience of the kids telling their dad how much it meant to them.

Stephanie McCullough (19:29):

Oh, right.

Pam Starsia (19:30):

And how much these memories of him making lasagna meant to them and how important that was as a part of their childhood. He had no idea. He had tears in his eyes when he is telling me about it, right.

Pam Starsia (19:51):

Because at the end of the day, these items, some of them are valuable, but really the important thing about them is the story, I think.

Pam Starsia (20:00):

And one of my mentors always says a teacup is just a teacup until you know the story behind it. That that was your great-grandmother’s, that was part of her wedding China. And she got it when she lived in a dugout in Oklahoma. And then it’s not just a teacup, it’s a part of your family legacy.

Stephanie McCullough (20:21):

So, not four days ago, I was with a good friend of mine, we’ve been friends since we were two, and her mother-in-law has recently passed away. They live across the country and her husband and the husband’s brother are like down to the last 10% of stuff.

Stephanie McCullough (20:35):

And she says, “There’s this one mirror and my brother-in-law wants it, but it matches this mirror and the thing we already have.” And it turns out it’s some, I don’t know, art deco piece or whatever. It’s like you know a valuable mirror. And she’s like, “We shouldn’t be fighting over the mirror.” But she obviously wants the mirror.

Stephanie McCullough (20:52):

So, like families always say, “Oh, my family will never fight. Everything will be fine.” And I’m thinking, “You never know.” [Kevin Gaines overcross: Yeah]

Pam Starsia (21:00):

Yeah. And I mean they might not fight, but that doesn’t mean they’re not thinking about it.

Stephanie McCullough (21:07):

Right. Resentments can build.

Pam Starsia (21:09):

Yeah. And I think one of the things that I like to acknowledge is we’re probably not going to cover everything [Stephanie McCullough overcross: right]. Because the reality is your kids, none of us know how we’re going to feel when we lose a parent or a loved one. So, we don’t actually know what we’re going to care about in that experience.

Pam Starsia (21:31):

But what I tell my clients is they are never going to be able to say that you didn’t ask them. They’re never going to be able to say that you didn’t ask for their opinion. You didn’t ask for what they cared about.

Pam Starsia (21:43):

And that’s across the board. The money, the personal items, the healthcare proxy, all of these decisions, we are going to give them a chance to weigh in over time because they will know that at least you cared, you cared about their opinion on this [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah].

Pam Starsia (22:05):

And so, I don’t know if your friend, if the mirror had come up however many years ago, would that have been something she cared about at the time? Who knows? But it might have been nice to have the opportunity to decide.

Stephanie McCullough (22:20):

To weigh in, right. And then another situation with friends of mine, the sisters aren’t talking anymore because mom named one sister the healthcare power of attorney because she felt like she had the gumption to pull the plug if necessary.

Stephanie McCullough (22:35):

And then the other sister financial, an executor. And the sister who got financial said it was so much more work. And so, mom thought she was splitting it evenly. And so, the financial sister totally resents the medical sister. And it’s a big mess.

Pam Starsia (22:49):

Yes. Well, that’s what we always tell people, you know, naming someone your executor or your successor trustee or your power of attorney, right, that’s a job.

Stephanie McCullough (22:57):

Right. It’s not an honor.

Pam Starsia (22:59):

It’s not an honor. That’s exactly what we say. It’s not an honor, it’s a job. And legally that person is allowed to pay themselves actually. Most people don’t because if you pay yourself a commission, it’s taxable income and … but it is so much of a job that they could pay themselves if they wanted to. And healthcare has its own set of challenges, right.

Pam Starsia (23:19):

But I’m so curious, did your friend, like did the parents talk to the daughters about that set up ahead of time?

Stephanie McCullough (23:25):

I don’t know.

Pam Starsia (23:29):

It is not. Because probably not. Or even if the lawyer told them to, they might not have. And that’s I have families where I have called a family meeting before we send the documents because I just want to make sure, I want to make sure everyone is on the same page. And I can’t do it without the client’s consent.

Pam Starsia (23:53):

But I think a lot of people appreciate being forced to have the conversation. And sometimes it’s just being able to say, “The lawyer said I have to talk to you about this.” Because everybody already hates the lawyer. So, blame everything on us.

Pam Starsia (24:14):

It is–The best thing about hiring a lawyer is you can blame everything on us for however long, right. Or you –Everybody listening to this, we’re all friends now. So, you can say, “My friend, the lawyer said I should talk to you about these personal items.”

Stephanie McCullough (24:35):

I like it.

Pam Starsia (24:36):

Yes. So, sometimes just having that way to start the conversation.

Kevin Gaines (24:40):

Well, it sounds like just having that family meeting, if nothing else, is going to reduce the chance of people being blindsided by a decision.

Pam Starsia (24:53):

Yes.

Stephanie McCullough (24:54):

Like at the reading of the will you discover everything was left to the cat or whatever.

Pam Starsia (24:58):

Yes. Except , it’s not that you know, there isn’t even really a reading of the will, right. So, what it is, is you get a packet of documents in the mail and you don’t know what they say because they’re in old timey legalese.

Pam Starsia (25:13):

And yes, we don’t want to the extent the client cares about not having any surprises and everybody understanding why decisions were made, we want to make sure that we’re setting everyone up for success to have that actually happen. And some people don’t care.

Pam Starsia (25:35):

I have a colleague who has a client in Texas, old oil money. Lots and lots of money. And his plan, he just has a will. Everything’s going to go through probate and go through the will. It’s super simple.

Pam Starsia (25:49):

And nothing– And he’s like, “I hate my kids, I hate my kids. I’m going to leave them everything but they’re spoiled brats. I’m going to leave them this money, but it’s going to be the first thing in their lives that they earn.” And that’s his plan.

Pam Starsia (26:03):

And that’s okay. You do not have to care. And if you don’t care what happens after you’re gone, then you shouldn’t pay for this type of deeper planning. But if you do care, we want to make sure you’re getting, getting what you want and getting what you pay for.

Pam Starsia (26:22):

Because the thing that is unconscionable to me is if people go to a lawyer and pay good money because they want to make things as easy as possible for their families. They want to keep them out of court and out of conflict and they think they’re doing that; they’re checking that box mentally of I got that done.

Pam Starsia (26:41):

And then, however many years later their family ends up in my office and don’t understand why we have to go to probate to sell the house. And we don’t want people to have that sense of false security, of just having a set of documents. We really want to have a plan and make sure everybody knows where to find everything, who to call, what’s going to happen.

Stephanie McCullough (27:04):

And what to do. Right, the what’s going to happen part. I feel like so many clients are stuck, especially you know I’m in my mid-50s, lots of friends and clients are dealing with the death of their parents and having to be executor and realizing like, “Oh my gosh, this is so much work. I had no idea.”

Pam Starsia (27:22):

It is so much work. And one of the things that I’m seeing is people in this sort of sandwich generation place of I have aging or I have aging parents, or I’ve just lost my parents, I have kids who are in school or in college and I’m still working, right. All the things.

Pam Starsia (27:44):

And it’s too much and then someone dies and now, I have to do a probate and I don’t know who to call. Like that’s overwhelming.

Pam Starsia (27:51):

And so, one of the things that we’re trying … a lot of people in that situation do not need the money they’re going to inherit. It’s part of their parents’ legacy and they they love and they respect it, but it’s not actually be like they don’t need it financially.

Pam Starsia (28:08):

And one of the things I try to do is encourage people, if you’re in that situation, pay for help, please. Like! You can pay people to do everything. And I think there’s a sense of, it’s personal obviously, and we want to honor that, but you do not have to be the one cleaning out the house and changing the locks and right …

Pam Starsia (28:35):

And especially so many people now, live away from where they grew up. And so that, if I can tell your listeners one thing, I think it might be if you have the resources to pay for help, pay for help because you deserve it.

Stephanie McCullough (28:52):

And the professional has done it before and they know the system and you’re just doing it the first time most likely, right. I mean-

Pam Starsia (28:59):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if you don’t feel like you’re getting the help you need, say your friend, the lawyer, says you deserve better.

Stephanie McCullough (29:10):

I like it.

Kevin Gaines (29:13):

Pam, how often do you see people come in and say, “Well, I’m going to pick so and so as my proxy or my power of attorney,” but just assuming that they are willing to do it without having talked to them first.

Pam Starsia (29:30):

I mean, I would say a majority of the time. And it’s not–And sometimes it makes sense, right. I have two kids; I’m naming them both jointly. We see that a lot. And I’m actually okay with naming joint agents for everything. Usually, we’re doing a lot of trust-based planning, we’re trying to avoid probate.

Pam Starsia (29:55):

And so, if I’m using a trust, I can set out the rules for how do we break a tie, how do we resolve [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Cool] disagreements without going into court? So, I’m very comfortable having joint trustees, if that makes sense. And same thing, joint healthcare agents. I just want to make sure if the two of them don’t agree that the hospital’s going to keep you alive.

Pam Starsia (30:22):

So, as long as everybody knows the decisions they’re making, I’m comfortable with joint agents. But so, there are some times where I haven’t talked to someone and it’s probably a safe assumption that it’s what everyone was expecting.

Our philosophy is we never want to let having those conversations be a reason to put off doing your planning. We want to have something in place.

Pam Starsia (30:52):

And for our clients, we know that we will be here to help steer the ship and guide them. And if someone has been named to a role that they can’t handle at that time, I believe that we will be able to help them navigate that and go on to the next person who’s named.

Pam Starsia (31:11):

So, in an ideal world, we’ve all had these conversations and we know everyone is on board. And also, my first goal when someone new comes in is to get the planning done. So, I am okay doing the documents and knowing that we can have those follow-up conversations over time if we need to.

Pam Starsia (31:34):

I’m not going to you know let it be one more excuse to procrastinate because what actually happens is once we’ve got something written down on paper, people feel a lot more urgency around having those conversations.

Stephanie McCullough (31:50):

Aha. So, it’s a forcing mechanism.

Pam Starsia (31:52):

Yeah. And then we can change it if it doesn’t make sense.

Stephanie McCullough (31:56):

It’s a righteous trick as our friend Carl would say.

Pam Starsia (31:58):

Yes, yes. That’s what I always say we abuse our law degrees to force families to talk to each other.

Stephanie McCullough (32:07):

I like it. Yeah, I say you know half our job is to bug people to do the things they know they’re supposed to do. So, similar, right?

Pam Starsia (32:14):

Yes. But everybody needs that, right. Like, Stephanie, I think before we got on, you said sort of chagrined that you hadn’t updated your plan in a while. Everybody, everybody is in that.

Stephanie McCullough (32:30):

I don’t know who to name as my backup healthcare person. I’m in a quandary. I don’t have a sister. My brother’s far away [Pam Starsia overcross: Yeah]. My kids, I don’t want to put that on them. They’re only in their early 20s, like. Yeah, that’s where I’m stuck.

Pam Starsia (32:43):

Yeah. And if you were in our office, we would talk through that and also, talk through like reality land, what happens, what’s the worst-case scenario if you don’t name that backup healthcare proxy, right. And then you actually get to decide how much energy you want to put into that decision.

Pam Starsia (33:03):

Because maybe you don’t care. Maybe sort of letting everyone figure it out is okay with you. And so, we always want to know what the do-nothing option is because then you can decide how much you care about changing it.

So, I can help you think about your healthcare proxy if you want, Stephanie.

Stephanie McCullough (33:22):

Okay, good. We’ll take that offline. I will report back to the listeners.

Kevin Gaines (33:27):

I don’t know how to phrase this as a question, but it’s one of my little bugaboos, so I’ll just be direct about this, which is, please talk about pets and pet trusts and making sure the fur babies aren’t forgotten.

Pam Starsia (33:43):

Oh my gosh. Thank you so much for asking that. So, we,  our firm in particular, we have a lot of clients who are veterinarians. And I think it’s because we do go out of our way to talk about the animals.

Pam Starsia (34:02):

I remember I actually went out to lunch with a financial advisor early on in my practice and she asked me about her dog. She does not have human kids; she has dog kids. And she asked me about her dogs because the lawyer who had drafted her and her husband’s wills, she had asked about the pets and the lawyer had said, “Well, you don’t put that in a will.” And we were all horrified.

Stephanie McCullough (34:27):

Kevin’s getting his back up for those of you who can’t see him.

Pam Starsia (34:29):

Yeah. And it is not to I don’t think before I started doing this though, I didn’t realize what a large percentage of so many animals who are in shelters are coming from homes where someone died or went into a nursing home or the hospital and there was no plan in place for them.

Pam Starsia (34:49):

But we’re not thinking just about who’s going to take care of them for the long term. But also, short term today.

Pam Starsia (35:00):

If you don’t make it home, who’s going to make sure that they’re fed. And a lot of the time, so there are options if you want to leave money for the care of your pets, you can set up a separate pet trust. And that’s an option where no one else can — you can’t use the money for anything other than the pets.

Pam Starsia (35:24):

And I have clients who have pet trust, some horses and things like that. Obviously, those are very expensive. I have two extremely well provided for Shih Tzus, my client’s.

Pam Starsia (35:38):

But a lot of the time you know there are administrative costs associated with a continuing trust. While you’re alive and the trust is revocable, there’s no added cost of maintaining it. But after someone dies, if there’s an ongoing trust, there are going to be some administering where you’ll have to do a tax filing.

Pam Starsia (35:57):

And so, for a lot of people, the plan isn’t, we don’t necessarily want to leave a pet trust, but the clients might decide that that isn’t necessary. But we want to know, the way that we phrase it is, who’s going to be responsible for finding the fur babies a good and loving home, whether that is with them or with someone else?

Pam Starsia (36:20):

And then often we will wanna live–we will write into the trust that the trustee can pay the reasonable costs of rehoming and those things. And that kind of covers it. And then you know we want to have our emergency caretakers for the pets lined up as well.

Pam Starsia (36:50):

But I have found that I have a lot more success with phrasing it that way of who’s going to be responsible for finding the animals a good home a good and loving home.

Pam Starsia (43:15):

But people do not want to saddle their kids or their neighbor with a dog that they haven’t agreed to. And people get nervous about that. But most people, there’s someone in their lives who if we say this person is going to take ownership of finding the pet a new home, that feels much more manageable.

Pam Starsia (37:13):

And then we’ve set it up in a way where it’s clear if it doesn’t work for your family at that time, you don’t have to feel guilty about not taking the dog. But yeah, It is– I don’t think we talk enough about that. And it’s probably because unless we’re doing a pet trust, it maybe doesn’t live it maybe doesn’t live in a legal document anywhere. But it should still be part of your planning.

Kevin Gaines (37:35):

But that also, gets to your point of talking about reviewing every three years. Because pains me to say this [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yes], my guys aren’t necessarily going to be going for 10, 20 years down the road that we will have to update from time to time.

Pam Starsia (37:55):

Yes. And actually, when I first started, I would actually include the pets in the family section of the trust because I do think they’re such an important part of your family. So, it would say-

Kevin Gaines (38:09):

I knew I liked you for a reason.

Pam Starsia (38:11):

It would say, “I’m unmarried, I have two kids and my family also, includes my dogs.” And then I realized that actually that is very sad when we have to update the trust to take the animals out. So, we have that information on the side now, but yeah. But we want to be looking. But we want to be looking at it over time.

Pam Starsia (38:33):

And we also, especially for married couples, right, they can actually have very different opinions on how much would be appropriate to spend on the care of the pets.

Pam Starsia (38:46):

So, one of the biggest fights I have ever moderated in person was over the couple had minor kids and this ancient chihuahua, and they agreed on everything else except the wife wanted to write in that you can spend as much money as possible to keep the chihuahua alive. And the husband was not on board with that.

Pam Starsia (39:13):

And we actually ended up buying health pet insurance. And that was how we solved that fight.

Stephanie McCullough (39:22):

I have a client, one of the questions I always ask is, what’s the best thing you’ve ever done with money? And she said, paying for hospice for previous dog. And it cost a lot. And she still to this day, is so happy that she was able to do that for her companion.

Pam Starsia (39:37):

That is so wonderful, yeah. And there’s also, again, we don’t want to just be thinking about what happens if you die, but as you age, if those animals are an important part of your life, how can we set you up for the best chance of being able to continue that relationship if you have to go into the hospital or a long-term care facility?

Pam Starsia (40:03):

There’s organizations that are doing amazing work with helping train caregivers to be able to make sure that elderly people are able to keep their pets with them as long as possible.

Stephanie McCullough (40:16):

Aw, that’s amazing.

Pam Starsia (40:17):

And even some of the long-term care facilities now, a lot of them allow the animals to come visit. I’ve seen one where cats are allowed to go live, which is kind of cool.

Pam Starsia (40:28):

And yeah, so, there’s,  if we know the right questions to think about, there’s a lot of really cool things that we can do to make sure that everything goes the way you want it to.

Stephanie McCullough (40:42):

And I think that’s what points out the value of working with an actual human attorney who has this kind of holistic approach and adjusting the emotions of it. Like knowing the questions to ask. If you go at like writeawill.com, some kind of thing, you know, you’re going to get the cookie cutter template, but not necessarily the professional to help you think through things.

Pam Starsia (41:04):

Yes, yes. The most common thing people say when they call our office is they’ll call and they’ll say, “My financial advisor said I need a will. How much does a will cost?” Right. And we will always ask them, “Oh, how do you know you need a will? Right. How do you know that’s what you need?” And they usually don’t know if the thing you want is just a document, and if you just want to say you check that box, then yes, go to freewill.com and do that. Don’t pay if that’s what you want.

Pam Starsia (41:41):

If you want to know that you have thought through all of the consequences and thought through all the choices and made decisions that line up with what you want and that you have a plan that will work, then you might want to pay for planning with a lawyer. But if you just want the cheapest set of documents, you can get those for free.

Pam Starsia (42:01):

But we also, as lawyers, we haven’t really trained people to — people are asking how much does it cost because they don’t know what else to ask, right.

Pam Starsia (42:13):

And so I think that, for me, I think our biggest job is working with the other professionals on the team proactively, especially the financial advisors, to be thinking about what questions are we asking when we’re interviewing lawyers or talking to lawyers, other than how much does it cost?

Stephanie McCullough (42:36):

So, Pam, if people want to follow you and learn more about your approach, I know you put out content in the world, how can they learn more?

Pam Starsia (42:43):

Oh, yes. We, So, our law firm is Starsia Law, S-T-A-R-S-I-A Law. We’re on all the Facebook, and Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Pam Starsia (42:57):

If people are in a state other than New York and they want to check out personalfamilylawyer.com, that is where you will find information about the personal family lawyer model and access to hundreds of relational heart-centered lawyers. And there’s a search function, so you can search for a personal family lawyer in your state.

Stephanie McCullough (43:23):

Awesome. Well, I’m getting the feeling we might have to have you back to continue the conversation, but thanks so much for being with us today.

Pam Starsia (43:29):

Thank you.

Kevin Gaines (43:30):

Thank you.

[Music Playing]

Kevin Gaines (43:35):

The biggest takeaway I had today, Stephanie, was something we talk about a lot when it comes to retirement planning. Again, it’s going to be that ING kicking in, that she’s talking about estate planning. It’s the constant monitoring, it is the updating.

Kevin Gaines (43:55):

And not just because laws may change or anything along those lines, but it’s just sometimes our attitudes change that, oh, maybe we want to do something a different way. Or we had our bequeaths structured because there was a certain setup, but now, the beneficiaries, their lives have changed. So, they have different.

Stephanie McCullough (44:20):

Relationships change, family dynamics change, all kinds of stuff. It feels less intimidating, like she was saying, to make a decision that’s going to work for the next three years instead of this is the final determination. I really appreciated that reframing.

Kevin Gaines (44:36):

Yeah, that’s a big thing. That’s a really big thing. I mean, and part of it is the way the industry is set up is that you pay to get all of this legal work done so you, you know you’re just driven to view it as a one and done.

Stephanie McCullough (44:51):

Yeah. That’s fricking expensive. You don’t want to do it all the time.

Kevin Gaines (44:55):

But if you view it as ongoing, then, and it does…at least to me, it does sound like it’s less intimidating. I mean, we see it on the financial planning side. Is you know you’re doing this one big thing. Yes, it gets overwhelming and intimidating, but ongoing planning, well you know, hey, now, it’s things change. So, we just adjust and pivot [Stephanie McCullough overcross: right]. Same thing here.

Stephanie McCullough (45:19):

And then I also, appreciate that she, again, kind of like us, acknowledges that these things are going to be emotional. There are going to be feelings, there’s going to be family dynamics, and relationships, and things that need to be discussed, hashed out, kind of thought through ahead of time to try to avoid the drama.

Stephanie McCullough (45:41):

I mean, there’s going to be drama and what can we do now? How can we acknowledge that fact that humans are human and put things into place to the best of our ability to try to foresee and maybe forestall that from really getting out of hand?

Stephanie McCullough (45:59):

Because you and I have both seen families who say, “Oh, my kids will never fight over money.” And the fights are not about the money. But there can be tensions, there can be resentments, there’s all kinds of stuff that can come up.

Kevin Gaines (46:12):

Yeah. I mean, going back to one of her stories, do you really think the one sibling would’ve been happy with a $100 to compensate for not getting the lasagna pans? Absolutely not. If you’re questioning if there’s emotion, there’s emotion right there pure and simple.

Stephanie McCullough (46:30):

Absolutely. This is family, this is people, this is lives, losing someone or someone being incapacitated and another person having to step in as agent.

Kevin Gaines (46:44):

Yeah. I mean, I remember when my grandmother died. I mean, this woman was poor She was…. She’s been on public assistance. Let’s see, my grandfather died in the early ’50s and she was basically on public support that entire time.

Kevin Gaines (47:00):

Yet when she died, going through all of her stuff, of which she had very little value, there were some serious fights among her children, between my mom and my aunts and uncles. I mean, there was a lot to be dealt with. And we were talking very low value stuff.

Stephanie McCullough (47;22):

But it’s not about the value.

Kevin Gaines (47:24):

It’s not the value.

Kevin Gaines (47:25):

The other big takeaway, I greatly appreciate Pam spending a few minutes talking about shockingly the importance of remembering your pets when it comes to estate planning. And even just generally being aware, if I’m incapacitated, who’s going to look after Fido or Scruffy? It’s important. And it’s sadly easy to kind of get overlook or forget about with juggling everything else.

Stephanie McCullough (47:56):

Yeah, yeah. And her suggestion of putting someone in charge of finding them a new home. Not saying you get to take the animal because again, we can’t foresee what’s going to be going on in that person’s life, but it feels like less pressure to say you’re in charge of finding this beloved four-legged or however many legged creature a new home. So, I think that’s another way of making it more approachable, which is useful.

Stephanie McCullough (48:26):

So, dear listeners, please use the excuse that your friend, the lawyer said you need to start having this conversation because Pam Starsia is now, your friend, the lawyer, and our friend. And we certainly appreciate her being with us.

Stephanie McCullough (48:40):

We appreciate you, listeners, being with us. We’ll talk to you next time. It’s goodbye from me.

Kevin Gaines (48:46):

And it’s goodbye from her.

[Music Playing]

Stephanie McCullough (48:49):

Be sure to subscribe to the show and please share it with your friends. Show notes and more information available at takebackretirement.com. Huge thanks for the original music by the one and only Raymond Loewy through New Math in New York. See you next time.

Voiceover (49:04):

Investment advice offered through Private Advisor Group, LLC, a registered Investment Advisor. Private Advisor Group, American Financial Management Group, and Sofia Financial are separate entities. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual security. To determine which investments may be appropriate for you, consult your financial advisor prior to investing. This information is not intended to be substitute for individualized tax advice. Please consult your tax advisor regarding your specific situation.