By Kristina Schneider, Practice Success Coach Thanks to the over 43 years of success of our affiliated law firm—Kavesh, Minor & Otis—we have found it vitally important to periodically meet with each employee (even ones that may be part-time or independent contractors) to review their job performance and set clear and defined goals. Once you do these reviews on a regular basis, you will be amazed how much more motivated and productive your staff will be! We do these reviews semi-annually—at the beginning of January and again in the middle of July, rather than just once a year. We do…
Journey to the Third Question: Navigating Planning for Those with an Alzheimer’s or Dementia Diagnosis
By Julieanne E. Steinbacher, J.D., CELA, LL.M. The estate planning and elder law fields need specific planning options geared at not just the legal documents but the aging and health care network that exists. Gone are the days when people seek out a “general practitioner.” Today, clients demand specialized providers and best-in-class care, with elder law being no different. As attorneys in estate planning and elder law, we can make a positive impact in our communities by providing the very best planning for individuals, family members and caregivers of those with a dementia or Alzheimer’s diagnosis. For my central Pennsylvania…
Use the Right “Google Bait” to Attract Great Estate Planning Clients
By Foster Web Marketing Who is your website designed for? It sounds deceptively simple, but this is a big question. If you think about and make a website like a lawyer, you’re probably only going to attract the attention of other lawyers. But, if you shift your thinking and your website toward what makes sense to the people you actually serve, you’ll attract your “perfect clients.” Too many lawyers write their content and develop their websites without those perfect clients in mind. And their ability to get great cases and clients suffers for it. So, if you want better leads…
Conduct a Successful 2025 “Kick-Off” Meeting with Your Firm
By Philip J. Kavesh, J.D., LL.M. (Taxation), CFP®, ChFC, California State Bar Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust & Probate Law I’ve found that the best way to ensure a successful new year is to start off with a big stride in the right direction, by holding a firm “kick-off” meeting. The purpose of this meeting is to establish clearly defined goals for the year, outline the implementation process and get everyone on board, excited and motivated! It also provides an action checklist that you and your firm can periodically refer back to during the year, so you stay on…
Dear President-Elect and New Congress: Please Fix the IRC Section 199A Pass-Thru Business Deduction Injustice Done to Lawyers, Accountants and Financial Planners
By Steven J. Oshins, Esq., AEP (Distinguished) The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 included an IRC 199A pass-thru business deduction that has been really nice for a whole lot of business owners. This deduction allows certain business owners to deduct 20% of their Qualified Business Income. However, not every taxpayer can receive this deduction. For a married couple with taxable income of no more than $315,000 (adjusted for inflation) and for an unmarried individual with taxable income of no more than $157,500 (adjusted for inflation), there are minimal rules and the 20% federal income tax deduction is available….
Year-End Sales Tip to Get Clients to Engage You
By Philip J. Kavesh, J.D., LL.M. (Taxation), CFP®, ChFC, California State Bar Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust & Probate Law As we head into the final weeks of the year, you may experience some pushback from clients and prospective clients you are meeting with. In particular, they may say that the holiday time is too busy and they’d like to revisit things sometime next year. The problem with this is that once they leave your office, it’ll be much harder to circle back with them, get them in, and get them re-motivated to do the planning and do business…
Nevada Restricted LLC/LP – How to Get Larger Valuation Discount
By Steven J. Oshins, Esq., AEP (Distinguished) A large part of estate planning involves using techniques to compress value to transfer assets of larger value to the next generation with minimal taxes. To do this, estate planners often use family limited liability companies and family limited partnerships to facilitate gifting and installment sales of minority interests or non-voting interests to family members or irrevocable trusts for the benefit of family members. Under Code Section 2704(b) and Treasury Regulations §25.2704-2(a), if an interest in an entity is transferred to or for the benefit of a member of the transferor’s family, any…
One of the Most Important Documents that Most Estate Planners Don’t Have
By Kristina Schneider, Practice Success Coach If you’re an estate planning attorney with your own law practice, there’s a good chance that you don’t have one of the most important manuals in your practice: an Employee Handbook. In fact, this may also be the case for other estate planning professionals as well, such as CPAs, financial advisors, or life insurance agents. The fact is, if you have your own business and you have employees working for you, an employee handbook is a must-have necessity as part of your business for all of the reasons laid out below. What Kinds of…
How Estate Planning Firms Use Pay-Per-Click Advertising Responsibly
By Foster Web Marketing Pay-per-click advertising (PPC) isn’t as easy or cheap as some marketing companies would have you believe. It’s a highly competitive marketing channel, especially for lawyers. That constant competition drives up the cost of popular keywords, even when those keywords aren’t necessarily effective at attracting the clients and cases you want. It also takes high-level research, technical know-how, and constant adjustment to get a good return on your PPC investment. So, if you approach it with the expectation that it’s going to be this simple, single-channel solution to all your marketing woes, you’re going to be disappointed. …
Top 10 Year-End Practice-Building & Marketing Ideas of 2024
By Kristina Schneider, Practice Success Coach As we head into the final quarter of 2024, you may be wondering where all the time went and what can you do in these final two months to really help your practice end the year with a BANG! I’ve put together what I consider to be the Top 10 Year-End Practice-Building and Marketing Ideas for 2024 so that you can end this year on a productive, positive note and head into 2025 with some momentum! IDEA #1: Clean up your database. Now is a great time to take a look at your database…