#RichLifeLawyer Podcast 008: Humility and Great Estate Planning Attorneys
#RichLifeLawyer Podcast 008: Humility and Great Estate Planning Attorneys
Every day we are confronted with decisions. Should we do this, or should we do that? Should we call this person, or should we call that person?
Without values, it can be difficult to know which direction one should go.
When I started CMS Law Firm and decided we were going to be the best estate planning attorneys in Seattle, the first thing I did was think about what our core values are.
One of the first things that came to mind was humility. I think all great estate planning attorneys must be humble.
Why? Because it’s important to remember that the service you are providing is bigger than yourself.
It’s bigger than the fee.
It’s bigger than the cool new trust you get to create.
It’s bigger than even the client sitting in front of you signing documents.
Great estate planning attorneys have the ability to shape generations. That’s a pretty big deal. And it takes being humble to remember that on a daily basis and do what’s right for the client.
And, to take it one step further, it’s important to remember that no matter how many assets any particular client is bringing to the table, whether $100 million or $1,000, they all deserve the same amount of respect and care given to their plan.
If you want to learn what humility means to me and why it creates great estate planning attorneys, listen to the podcast above or read the transcript below.
Cheers,
Christopher Small
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Christopher Small is a Kirkland estate planning attorney who helps people get rich and live forever. He is also the owner of CMS Law Firm LLC.
Humility and Great Estate Planning Attorneys Transcript
Hey everybody this is Christopher Small. This is episode number eight of The Rich Life Lawyer podcast. Thank you for being here and it’s happy to have you listening. I am happy to maybe spit a little knowledge in the estate planning lawyer world as you know, I am the owner of CMS Law Firm and this podcast every week is all about estate planning a little bit about how to make your life rich. One of the things or the, would the thing that we’re gonna talk about this week. I hired a new assistant this week and are actually a couple weeks ago she start next week, this week.
And we’ve had a couple conversations about what the firm is all about. What the values are. What our philosophies are. And I want to share a little bit of that with you because I think it’s important and it’s something that I think is maybe a bit different than other estate planning attorneys and maybe better maybe worse depending on what you’re looking for but you know one of one of the things that I think makes an estate planning attorney good. Is humility and that is one of our core values being humble. Not being too, too big for the moment. Being able to share the spotlight, being able to sacrifice I guess for the common good and that applies while we’re at work because we all contribute to the team, we all contribute to our clients’ success but also is important when it comes to serving clients on a daily basis.
And one of the problems that you can run into when you hire an estate planning attorney is the estate planning attorney that has a little bit of an ego or that has set idea for the way that things should be and they try to fit the square peg in the round hole. We’ve all heard that term before I think. But you know for the most part estate plans are not going to be super complicated. You really have to start to get over, you know I mean ten million dollars in net worth before things get super complicated in my belief at least you know there are some things to be done to move some things around but until that point, it’s not going to rocket science. It’s not going to be difficult and I think and I can say this too.
There may be some things that you would do that would not need to be done by an estate planner, that can be done by somebody else a new team, financial planner, an accountant for example. And that’s what I mean by humility when it comes to our firm like our number one goal is to allow you to get rich and live forever. Our number one goal is to give you the plan that helps you reach your goal. Now if that means we don’t earn a very high fee from you then that’s okay. Because at the end of the day that’s our number one goal we want to earn your business. We want to earn your referrals and we want to keep your clients for life. And humility and the ability to take a step back and say, let’s bring in another member of your team on this to talk about it and analyze it and see if there are better things to do.
It’s something that you won’t often find with other estate planters, they want to keep everything in-house, they want to keep everything close to the vest, they want to try out latest estate planning product or do the newest trust on you. They want to find some way to make that work and so some will do that. We don’t do that here. We want to give you what helps you serve your needs in the most efficient and economical way possible. I think it is possible for you to understand every element of your estate plan and we will do our best to make sure that you do that and humility and being home is a big part of that.
So be on the lookout for that, I hope you consider us and if you don’t that’s okay. It’s no big deal. We have plenty of clients and they’re happy and I think you would be too. And you may just not know where you’re missing. But I did want to talk about this because I want to be on lookout for these things when you are looking for someone because it can be difficult to determine who is a good attorney out there right because what we do is a little bit hard to get a grasp on, it’s complicated often and there are a lot of things in play and it can be difficult to know who’s good or who’s bad.
So I think that’s what I want to talk about for this episode. Good quality of a good attorney. Good estate planning attorney is humility. We have it in spades here. We have other great qualities as well which make us good. And sort of balance that humility. We’re not afraid to take a stand and do what’s right for our clients and we also aren’t afraid to speak up. That’s not what humility is for us it’s putting the client first and helping you reach your goals. So, I can close it with that. Once again I’m Christopher Small, this is episode eight, of the Rich Life Lawyer Podcast and I hope you are having a great day, every week, every month, and every quarter, and a great year. So, catch you later. Bye.