Case Details
- Client Name: Greg and Laura (anonymized)
- Age: Early 70s
- Family Dynamics: Married couple with three adult children and several grandchildren
- Concerns: Supporting children and grandchildren with diverse needs, honoring philanthropic goals, and addressing outdated planning structures
Building a Legacy for Generations
Their Situation
Greg, a retired executive, and Laura, a nurse, had built a substantial estate and wanted their legacy to reflect their values. Now in their early 70s, they had three adult children with diverse needs:
- One child struggled with chronic health issues.
- Another was in a strained marriage, raising concerns about inheritance being mismanaged in the event of a divorce.
- Their third child lacked financial independence and needed ongoing support.
In addition to caring for their children, Greg and Laura were committed to philanthropy, hoping to dedicate a meaningful portion of their wealth to causes they deeply valued. However, their estate plan was outdated, failing to address their family’s current dynamics or changes in tax laws.
Key Challenges
What Greg and Laura Needed to Solve:
- Supporting Unique Needs: Ensuring each child received tailored support while addressing the complexities of health issues, strained marriages, and financial dependency.
- Balancing Family and Philanthropy: Structuring their estate to achieve their charitable goals without creating tension among their children.
- Updating an Outdated Plan: Revising their estate plan to reflect new family dynamics and comply with current laws.
- Asset Protection: Protecting inheritances from risks like lawsuits, divorce settlements, or financial mismanagement.
- Tax Optimization: Minimizing estate and capital gains taxes to preserve their wealth for both their family and charitable priorities.
Inspired Solutions
How Legacy Engineering™ Would Address These Challenges:
While we worked with Greg and Laura to update their estate plan and address immediate priorities, their case highlighted the need for a more comprehensive approach to navigate their family’s complexities. Their challenges inspired key aspects of Legacy Engineering™, including:
- Comprehensive Visioning: Starting with a visioning process to align personal, family, and philanthropic goals into a cohesive legacy plan.
- Family Meetings: Facilitating family discussions to clarify intentions, address misunderstandings, and foster alignment across generations—both early in the process and when the new plan is implemented.
- Asset Protection Strategies: Establishing advanced trusts to shield their children’s inheritances from external risks while ensuring grandchildren benefit as well.
- Successor Engagement: Developing governance structures to ensure the next generation and fiduciaries are well-informed and equipped to manage the family’s wealth effectively.
- Philanthropy Integration: Balancing family provisions with charitable giving through tax-efficient strategies.
- Legacy Concierge™: Providing ongoing maintenance to adapt their estate plan to changes in laws, family dynamics, and philanthropic priorities.
Why This Matters
The Legacy Engineering™ Difference:
Greg and Laura’s story highlights the importance of addressing diverse family dynamics, integrating philanthropy, and ensuring multi-generational wealth preservation. Their experience inspired the development of Legacy Engineering™, a holistic framework that combines estate planning, asset protection, family governance, and philanthropy into a cohesive process. By leveraging advanced tax strategies and fostering family harmony, Legacy Engineering™ creates legacies that reflect values and remain resilient across generations.
Disclaimer: This case study is inspired by real client experiences that shaped the development of Legacy Engineering™. While anonymized and modified to protect privacy, it illustrates how the methodology addresses challenges like those faced by this client.