Preparing for Your Initial Consultation

Congratulations on taking personal responsibility for your Life & Estate Planning and thank you for selecting our firm to assist you. Our Life & Estate Planning Consultation Protocol is a four-step process, which is described step-by-step below. Reading through these four steps will acquaint you with our process and our services.

Our Life & Estate Planning Protocol

Step One: Call our office at 516-620-5944 or toll free at 800-394-1809 ext. 7 to schedule your Life & Estate Planning Consultation. You may also fill out the contact form on the website. We see clients on Mondays through Fridays as well as certain Saturdays and our office is located in Garden City, New York. We even have evening appointments available to make planning as convenient for you as possible.
We know that some of our clients may have transportation issues or be more comfortable in their own home- if so, please let us know what would be most convenient for you.

Step Two: Once your initial consultation is scheduled, you will receive our Confidential Estate Planning Worksheet Questionnaire either in the US Postal mail or as an email attachment. If you have attended a seminar, the questionnaire would have been included in your packet. Alternatively, you may download the appropriate questionnaire directly from this website via the link below. Complete the information to the best of your ability and return the document to us by fax or by mail at least three days before your initial consultation. Click on the proper link below to download:

Estate Planning Worksheet- Married (View Document)
Estate Planning Worksheet-Single (View Document)

* Note: This download requires Adobe Reader 7.0. You may download the latest version of Reader for free by visiting http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html.

Important: We must have your Estate Planning worksheet returned to our office three days prior to your Consultation either by mail, fax or electronic mail or we will need to reschedule your Consultation. Feel free to call the office at any time if you need assistance completing your worksheet or have any questions at all. If you have existing estate planning documents, please bring your existing documents to our meeting.

Step Three: Before your initial consultation, Charles will thoroughly review the questionnaire, focusing his review on your responses to your planning objectives and the other information you provide in the questionnaire. Accordingly, the more considered your responses and the more detailed the information you provide, the more accurate Charles’ review and preparation for your initial consultation.

Step Four (The Initial Appointment): Your initial consultation is complimentary and is limited to one hour. During the consultation, Charles will confirm his understanding of your responses to the planning objectives and goals.
You will also get a chance to tell us about your family, priorities, goals, and dreams – things that are difficult on a form but are very important to designing the right solutions for you. After we have gotten to know you better, we will educate you about the law and what would happen to your family and assets under your current plan if you become incapacitated or die. Finally, we will answer any questions you have about our firm, the planning process, or the law in general.

If you decide to hire us and we decide to take you on as a client, we will then design your estate plan. This can be accomplished during the first meeting, or you can choose to set up an additional meeting. We will ask you a number of questions that allow you to customize your plan to get exactly the protection you need.
At the end of the hour, Charles will give you his opinion regarding: (1) whether we may be able to assist you with your planning objectives; (2) the planning alternatives Kyle would recommend to meet your objectives; and (3) the fees for the various planning alternatives.
Based on your answers to the questions, we will give you a firm, flat fee quote for our legal services. We most commonly work on a flat fee basis – so you will know the entire fee up front and will not be surprised by an unexpectedly high hourly-fee bill. If you choose to retain our services to implement the planning alternative you select and we decide to take you on as a client, then we would sign an Engagement Letter detailing the services to be provided and the fees.

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