Estate Planning: When you have a child with Special Needs!

Strickland Bonner: So you're a lawyer, and your clients are squeezing you for lower fees. How do you put more cash in your pocket? We want to expose you to new ways of practicing law. Endless hours with no home life and a lease on an expensive office are so 1999. It's time to make a change for the better. Here to help you with that is your host Ron Boxdollar. Welcome to the 1958 Lawyer Podcast.

Ron Bockstahler: Welcome to the 1958 Lawyer. Good to have you here today. We got an outstanding guest. By the way, I'm your host Ron Boxdollar. So my good friend Attorney Greg Garfala is joining us today. Greg has been practicing law for more than 20 years, helping families achieve their long-range goals through proper estate planning. Greg's a father to a daughter with special needs, so he has insider's an insider's view in planning for a child's long-term care. He also serves as a court appointee to guardianship matters, in guardianship matters, and complex probate matters. God, I've known Greg for 20 plus years. His activities in legal and charitable organizations are too many to mention, but he does serve in leadership roles with the Illinois Bar Association, the Chicago Bar Association. He's the chair of the CBA's Probate Practice Committee, president or past president of the Justinian Society of Lawyers. He's a board member with Justinian Society Children's Endowment Fund, where he's helped raise a lot of money. And maybe most important of all, he's a volunteer with the Central Illinois Sheltie Rescue. Greg's had many, many Shelties since I've known him, so we'll kind of chat a little about that. Greg, welcome to the show. Oh,

Gregg Garofalo: thanks, Ron. Thanks a lot. I appreciate it, and glad to be here. Thanks for the introduction. I just want to say a lot of those board member positions with ISBA and CBA. Those were a lot of those were in the past since the one board that I takes up most of my time is the board member of my family, and I say board member because I'm not the chair.

Ron Bockstahler: Yeah, two your youngest turns four here coming up in October.

Gregg Garofalo: Yeah, yeah, and my one that just

Ron Bockstahler: started kindergarten. So

Gregg Garofalo: yep, yeah, they become

Ron Bockstahler: time consuming.

Gregg Garofalo: They do, and Rebecca, Rebecca, my wife, our Rebecca's, since we both said, Rebecca's is also a lawyer, and she practices. So it keeps us busy. It keeps us really busy. We're going to talk about that too.

Ron Bockstahler: So we're going to talk about that raising children, being and keeping your law practice going. I think it's amazing. So we're going to get that in a minute. But let's kind of talk off a lot of people that maybe know you don't know that you started your career as an accountant. You're a CPA, so you know. Talk to us how you became, how you kind of moved into being an attorney.

Gregg Garofalo: So, and and I know this can be added, Ron. So, just for clarification, I have an accounting background, accounting degree from Illinois Weiss University. I graduated in 1992 with the idea that I was going to be practicing as an accountant. I ended up getting the family business full time, which I'd been working in ever since I was 13 years old, which was running restaurants. And so I did that for four years before I went to law school. And going to law school, I knew what I wanted to do going in, which is kind of what I wanted to do, even as I was graduating from undergrad. I wanted to work with families. I wanted to work with small businesses. Part of that was because I came from a family that owns a small business because I felt like I could really help them and and be a part of their their overall team in their business. And so going into law school, I knew that I wanted to do estate planning with and with my background in tax planning or my background with taxes. I thought it was a really good fit, and I finished up my law school, my JD, and started working for Ernst & Young in their tax consulting department. And while working there, I went on to get my master's in tax from Chicago Kent University or Chicago Kent College of Law. So I've got my JD in master's of tax from Kent as well, and my undergrad in accounting. And I stayed with Ernst & Young for a couple of years before I started to go to private practice.

Ron Bockstahler: So let's think back. What year did you start your prac or your own practice?

Gregg Garofalo: 19 92,000 I graduated. I graduated. No way of switching. I graduated law school in 99 Got my master's degree in 2000 Worked for a firm for four years, and then so I started my own practice in 2004

Ron Bockstahler: Okay. Okay. So and then let's kind of fast forward a little bit. I think you were ahead of your time. You moved to Georgia. You moved your family to Georgia while maintaining a law practice in Chicago. So let's talk about you know how do you do law different? What technology are using? How do you make it happen? I guess that's the. Let's start there.

Gregg Garofalo: Sure. So when my what my I met my wife in Chicago. I met Rebecca in Chicago. She was a practicing attorney with the law school here when we got married and decided to start a family. Rebecca's from Northwest Georgia, just south of Chattanooga, so we decided to go back and be close to her family. She's got a twin sister and two other sisters to help raise our family. And so Rebecca was working with the firm at that time as well. So we were faced with the challenge of how do we make this work? A practice that I've had in Chicago for over at that point over 12 years. How do we keep that practice and operate it from Georgia and be successful? So yeah, when I started my practice even before that, I tried to institute software and client management software, which I think helped a lot in keeping things all digital because. We early on we we tried to keep our files all digital, scanning all the important documents and keeping them online. So when we decided to start to make this transition, I didn't have to have my files with me. I didn't have to be in the office because I could pull up our client management software. And at that point, probably about 70% of the documents were already scanned in the system. So if I needed something, it was all right there.

Ron Bockstahler: No, I make fun of you quite a bit. I call you a geek because you know you're more of a techie than you are attorney sometimes, or maybe both. I don't know, but you know how does someone that don't love technology like you do? How do they do

Gregg Garofalo: it? In all honesty, if you're if you're technology adverse, all I could say is then you have to work with somebody. You have to work with a a firm. You know, even like like amata, you'd have to work with a firm that has the experience that can kind of guide you through it, because there's just no avoiding it. And we've seen that now with COVID. I won't say his name, but you know my next door neighbor here in in my office suite, who's very technology adverse and always has been as long as I've known him. And now with COVID pandemic, he he he doesn't want to come back to the office and work if he had a choice, because he likes it, and he likes having, and that means he's had to step up with a lot of the technology and and step into the 21st century, if you would.

Ron Bockstahler: I think you know, in older generations, it's kind of funny. We we looked at and said, man, if you're like over the age of 60, you're definitely going to be aching to get back to the office. But I'm finding that's not necessarily the case. It's the younger people that want to get back to the office, maybe for the social and the mentoring and just the the opportunity to grow their practice, but some of these you know seasoned attorneys that always loved coming to the office are realizing, hey, it's pretty nice. I'm working. I get a lot done at home.

Gregg Garofalo: Absolutely, I think that's completely true. My associate, her she comes from a family of lawyers, and her dad, his firm, they're not even back in the office at all, and her brother is the same way. They're back in the office maybe two days a week, and they don't know when they're going back. But you know, I could even say, yeah, I agree with you on definitely the older generation is is really starting to. I say older generation, the 60 and older lawyers. I'm not too far from that. So, but the 60 and older lawyers, yeah, they really do appreciate and and are enjoying being able to work remotely. I'm finding even some of the younger lawyers are are enjoying that as well too. They want their day or two maybe in the office, but they they definitely like the freedom of being able to work from home as well too.

Ron Bockstahler: I'm with them. I'm enjoying it myself. Yeah, let's let's jump into estate planning. Unknown: Yeah, you know, I obviously a topic close to my heart. We've had Steve Seckler on recently talking about you know planning your future. What's the you know designing your life? What's it going to look like? And and estate planning kind of falls right into that. And most of us, especially attorneys, don't just ignore their own estate plans. So we, what's a good time? Let's start. When do you start? What's the best time? I've got you know six children. When do I start telling them, hey, you need? Let's start focus on estate planning for you.

Gregg Garofalo: Okay, so you and I were talking about this before, and I think we just posted something on our firm blog on our website. It's never too early to start planning. I mean, literally, we tell parents when your kids turn 18, they should come in and at least do the basic estate planning. The basic estate planning is just powers of attorney for healthcare, powers of attorney for property, a basic will, HIPAA authorization, and actually each university is a little bit different, but access, educational records access, and you know, parents like, oh, communism, is that really necessary? God forbid, we don't know what's coming around the corner. Nobody knew what COVID was going to be like this, and with everything happening, having that in place, if your child gets sick at school or something happens to them, you're prepared because without these documents, these basic, very easy documents, you could find yourself in probate court in front of a guardianship judge trying to make medical decisions for your son or daughter just because you didn't know. I mean, you didn't think about it. Not that you were procrastinating; you shouldn't know.

Ron Bockstahler: So let me stop you real quick because I don't want to go over that what you just said. Records access, and I never thought about this until you'd mentioned this, and we were just sitting around talking recently. 18, all of a sudden, my son turns 18. I can no longer access his records, even if he's sitting in the hospital dying. Yes,

Gregg Garofalo: that is that is correct. So under Illinois law, you as the parent under the Illinois Healthcare Surrogate Act can make medical decisions for him without a court or without a power of attorney. But here's the here's the you know the catch: you can't get access to his records. You can't say, hey, you know what? I want a copy of all his records so that I can get a second opinion from a different hospital because you don't have that authority under the Healthcare Suricad Act. You can only make medical decisions. Kind of a an odd rule that a lot of acts and law that never changed. So you're absolutely correct. Once he turns 18, you can't access his records without his authorization or without a court giving you that authority.

Ron Bockstahler: Wow. Now I know you practice in Illinois, and you practice in Georgia yet?

Gregg Garofalo: I'm not, but my wife is. Rebecca is, and Rebecca is doing estate planning and estate administration in Georgia as well too.

Ron Bockstahler: So are you familiar with other states? Is that a pretty common clause, or is that is it just all state by state and across the board, like so many other things?

Gregg Garofalo: The healthcare surrogate act, there's something similar in every state.

Ron Bockstahler: Okay, let's talk. Yeah, let's talk college kids. I know we had talked about this too. Let's you know, what should we be thinking about for our kids that are in college, as far as setting up their estate planning?

Gregg Garofalo: Their estate planning, the kids' estate planning. Yeah, yeah. There's there's five basic things that we tell parents, and I touched on them real quick, but I'll just go over them again. Five basic things: we're power of attorney for healthcare, so that you have the ability to make healthcare decisions for your child. Because, like you said, once they turn 18, you want it in writing exactly the power that you have without having to get a court involved. A HIPAA authorization, which the difference between for those who don't know between a HIPAA authorization and a power of attorney for for healthcare. HIPAA we've all signed those nowadays with going to the doctor. It just means you have access to medical records or you're giving somebody access to your medical records. And in most instances, a power of attorney for healthcare will cover that. But we recommend both. Just it's kind of the duo cross cross all T's and dot the I's. It's better to have both of those power of attorney for property, and this is one where well, my my kids don't have anything. The only thing my kids have is what I give them. So why do we need a power attorney for property? That may be true, okay, but that power of attorney is also going to give you authority then to if something happens to your child, pay their credit cards, get access to credit card records, maybe cancel credit cards, just stop for whatever reason. It will give you the authority to execute tax returns for your child because at the age of 18 they need to be filing their own tax returns. So that powerage from the property is something very important, even if they don't have any money. A last will and testament, and I know that seems very morbid, but it is very unfortunate if your child gets in an accident at college or on the way to college or even not at college, and it's a result of an accident where their estate inherits money or receives money. Your child may want to say, "Well, look, mom, dad, you're all set. I don't want to give it to you. I'd rather give it just to my siblings, or I'd rather give it to this charity that I'm so passionate about, or so on, etc. So, a basic will is is something that's very important as well. And the last document that parents don't think about and is normally not part of a parent estate plan. Certainly, would be the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act authorization form. And each school has its own unique form, but in essence, that's giving you the authority to access your child's records, school records. Because parents like, well, wait, I pay for the education. Can I get access to the records? Not necessarily.

No. Ron Bockstahler: So you know, simple question that someone like me thinks about is, well, I'm sending my kids out to this college, and we do the enrollment, and and you know, I pay tuition. Are these things the school brings up? Like, hey, here's a checklist. Make sure you covered all these things.

Gregg Garofalo: You know, though, a lot of times they will bring up, and I'll use the acronym the FERPA release for the records, since that is a unique form that each school has felt that may be something that they you know kind of shove in front of the college students say here sign this at registration but the other documents generally no generally what's the

Ron Bockstahler: family do do they call someone like you and say I'm a bind my kid's in the hospital he's in college I can't access his records what do I do

Gregg Garofalo: I'd say we sit down and we go through and we have to open up a guardianship estate and I've had that happen a couple of times during my career. I was

Ron Bockstahler: curious. So give me a ballpark. Something like that happens, and we're talking about the college student. What are we talking in money just open to guardians? I know I know attorneys don't want to talk about that, but I just want a ballpark. Are we talking a $5,000 thing, a $20,000 thing

Gregg Garofalo: in Cook County and the Colorado counties generally? You're looking at just to open it probably about $5,000 and that's not all. That's not all the attorney's fees. That's filing fees, the attorney's fees. The court usually appoints a guardian ad litem that also has to be paid from the guardianship estate. So all these fees come into play that have to be paid. And from start to finish, it's usually about 5000 And people like, well, why is that so expensive? Well, if you're coming to me because you need to make medical decisions for your child because they're in the hospital. That's just not a regular guardianship. Now it's a temporary guardianship based on an emergency basis. So that's even more fees. So all these fees add up very quickly because you need to start making decisions very quickly. And so it's like anything in life. We tell our clients all the time: a guardianship usually is set up as a reaction to something happening, and with the powers of attorney and sitting down and educating your children and educating parents, that's that's you're being proactive and you're planning ahead of time. So the cost versus that, I mean, the cost to do basic estate planning for a college student of a client, we give them a discounted rate for for if they're an existing client. I mean, could be minimal, could be 10% It could be 20% It could be 1000 you know, $2,000 which is extremely less than this issue. Plus, no court, no court involvement. Not public. It's all private. So

Ron Bockstahler: this is this sounds like a you know an area of law that I never even thought about. You know, sending your kid after college is enough, but now all of a sudden I should make sure that we have all these forms, these documents filled out, they got in the state.

Gregg Garofalo: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And like I said, there is a blog, a really quick blog that goes over the five different documents that we suggest for children. So, and we are doing a a little webinar because we have more and more parents that have called us this year, and I think part of that is has been fueled by COVID.

Ron Bockstahler: Let's talk about children. Let's talk about because you've got firsthand experience with Seraphina. What special, I guess, actions do you need to take to make sure that you know Seraphina is taken care of if something were to happen? You know, God forbid something happens to you and Becca.

Gregg Garofalo: So it's so Seraphina. She's going to be sixth in December, like we talked about. She has autism, and so. He's not verbal at this time, and so the prognosis for autism medical experts don't know. They can't tell you. So for us, and what we try to tell parents in similar situations is the planning should start now. I mean, you don't know what's going to happen a year, five years, 10 years down the road, and it's always to me again getting back to you need to do the planning now, so you're not reactive and scrambling down the road. And so, what are some of the things we do? Well, we set up, you know, consider setting up a special needs trust for for your child now. And you want it to be a special needs trust, a what we call a third-party special needs trust, which is one that we create and we fund and we put our money in now. And a lot of parents have said, "Well, you know, I I got I'm not worried about it. When when the time comes and I pass away, I'll just make sure that she gets half of the assets and the other half go to my other daughter, or whatever the case may be. But an outright gift to your child like that could disinherit them, or not disinherit could disqualify them from potentially getting governmental assistance or qualifying for certain governmental programs, and make them spend down all that money first. So, example: parents pass away, both parents pass away, and the the child that has special needs may inherit $200,000 and it's a direct outright gift to the child. Well, that child has spent all that money down for their own care before they can qualify for any kind of governmental benefit. And the alternative: set up a special needs trust, and you put it all into a special needs trust. Now that child qualifies for all the governmental benefits, and whatever they don't receive from the government or whatever programs don't provide for them, the money in the special needs trust can supplement. So it's taking that $200,000 and stretching it out, hopefully for a longer period of time, to provide better care and and have more assets available for your child.

Ron Bockstahler: So is that going to be the case if the child's already receiving some kind of a government assistance?

Gregg Garofalo: Absolutely, because if they're receiving some kind of governmental benefits or assistance, and you pass away and they receive this outright gift, those those programs are usually asset and income based, and so you'll you'll the child will lose those benefits until the money that they receive is spent down. Then the benefits benefits pick back up again.

Ron Bockstahler: So Greg, does that include an insurance policy? So say there's a $5 million insurance policy the child's going to be the beneficiary of. Was that would that actually count towards have to spend that money down to also?

Gregg Garofalo: Absolutely, yeah.

Ron Bockstahler: So how do you get around that?

Gregg Garofalo: If it goes out right to the child, then absolutely it would be a spend down that they have to spend. So how do you get around it? You've just set up a trust for the child. In most situations, parents will set up in their trust distribution to the children are not outright. It's held in trust for the children, and so since the children never have access to it, then they will continue to qualify for governmental benefit.

Ron Bockstahler: So I'm going to tell you, you and I never really talked about this as far as you know, special needs, special needs trusts, probably before Seraphina. So, is this something you had to go out and you know? It doesn't seem to me like the normal area that if you're in estate planning that you're really focused on. And maybe I'm wrong with that, but did you have to go out when you know when you when Seraphina found out Seraphina had autism and do a little more research, and then that make you even better at at setting these things up than the average estate planning attorney.

Gregg Garofalo: So in my career, when with the first firm that I started working at and and wanting to do estate planning, I was kind of thrown into estate administration and guardianships pretty quickly as a practicing attorney. And so I had had a great deal of experience before Seraphina was born with special needs trust and the different types of special needs trust and qualifying for governmental benefits and you know how do we plan to make sure we can maximize benefits all around. So when Seraphina was born, I had a pretty good base and background in that already. So we were prepared as much as you could be prepared for as a as a parent in general, but as a parent with the child with special needs, we were somewhat prepared for how do we plan from an estate planning perspective.

Ron Bockstahler: Yeah, I think I look at it as having someone with firsthand knowledge and understanding makes it a little more, maybe a little more empathetic under with talking to a parent that's kind of going through similar situations. So that to me is a that's a plus, right? Dealing with that,

Gregg Garofalo: it really is. I've gotten I've I've got I've got a lot of clients who have come to me because they know our situation. I don't try to hide it. Surfing is, by opinion, a beautiful, wonderful young young girl who hopefully has a as much as possible normal life and whatever normal is ahead of her. But I don't hide what her her special needs are, and so I think that openness resonates with a lot of families who are faced with the same thing because they know that I know what they're going through. Yeah, let's kind of flip back to you live in Georgia. You have a practice in Chicago. How often you're in Chicago? Pre-COVID, I was here every week. Post-COVID or in the midst of COVID, I come up maybe once a month. Not even maybe once every other month. It just depends. Right now, with everything still kind of in flux and the court system not completely open and everything being via Zoom, there's really not much of a need to be here. Most clients enjoy Zoom now. You know where I thought we all thought there would be this adverse. Oh, I don't want to deal with that. They've really taken to it. So I think that this has worked out well for. Because it's more convenient for them. Hey, can you meet at 6o'clock at night after the kids have had dinner? Sure, I don't have to go out to your house. We'll jump on Zoom and I can take a call real quick and we can you know go through stuff now.

Ron Bockstahler: So, but you're also a court appointee in many guardianship matters. You do do some litigation. Probate court's not back in person doing trials, correct?

Gregg Garofalo: Correct.

Ron Bockstahler: So that could change things going forward when they do, assuming they'll come back. I mean,

Gregg Garofalo: well, now we're doing we're doing hearings, we're doing hearings. Guardianship and probate administration is not really generally not adverse. It's not an adverse proceeding. So a lot of the hearings and stuff we do, we can do online. But what we're not doing is we've got at least two jury trials that can't be scheduled yet. Will contest and and another one disinheritance contest, and we can't schedule it because there's no juries that are available yet for probate matters. Okay,

Ron Bockstahler: so that might change a little bit. So everyone's probably asking, wondering, you know, okay, you live in Georgia, you come Chicago, but how's your practice doing? Are you are you busy? Like I hear so many are. You kind of are things tough.

Gregg Garofalo: I mean, we're we're busier than we've ever been. We've you know as much as we were prepared for this in living down in Georgia now for a little bit over seven years, we I really started to move everything from server based to cloud based. So again, we were kind of prepared for this. It didn't matter where you lived. The most part, my my employees took their laptops, went home, and they could start working at home. But we've also tried to streamline things quite a bit from a staffing perspective as well. So we're busy. We're we're very busy, and the staff is very busy. But things are going things are going well.

Ron Bockstahler: That's good to hear. You know, I'm a big proponent of changing the way laws practice in so many ways. And you know, if anything, COVID as bad as it's been, it's really accelerated some of the changes that were kind of slowly coming our way, and I think you were on the forefront seven years ago when you made the move.

Gregg Garofalo: Yeah, absolutely. It's definitely throwing a lot of you know attorneys into okay. I got to figure out this cloud thing. What what is this? You know, it's it's it's in the cloud. It's up in the sky. You know, I can't remember that movie that that that was from, but yeah, they've had to sit down and say, okay, I don't have to understand necessarily, but I definitely have to get on board with it and figure out how to use it.

Ron Bockstahler: Absolutely, and I think that's we had a webinar. I think maybe under 486, the ABA guidance that came out saying, hey, you still need to understand technology. You know, you're still it's an ethical rule. You know, ties into 1.6 rule 1.6 that you still got to be able to know what you're talking about and serve your clients, which means you have to understand the technology, or at least someone in your firm needs to understand it. You're still responsible, I guess, at the end of the day. You know, last question. We always like talk. First, I'll leave it to you. Is anything else you want to add about probate or estate planning that we've missed on? Things you want to hit on?

Gregg Garofalo: Well, you know, there's there's a lot of new hot topics. You know, people like tell me all the time. Well, estate planning, Greg, it's the same. It's the same as it is today, as it was, you know, 1520, years ago, and you know, it's same as it's going to be, you know, five or 10 years. So I, because I often tell clients, once we do your estate plan, we should still sit down once a year and see what's changed, what's changed in your life, what's changed. And when they tell me, well, you know, nothing's really changed. Well, yeah, a lot's changed. COVID is something that's definitely changed. One thing you and I were talking about at the at the beginning, cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrencies are something that definitely has has changed, and I think that with clients having several of our clients investing in cryptocurrencies, it's something that we need to look at your estate plan and see how that plays into it.

Ron Bockstahler: Yeah, that's it's interesting.

Gregg Garofalo: I'm glad you brought that up because I'm thinking to myself, that is not a safe investment. As a guardian, aren't you required to have you know maintain safe investments? So you do have to sell that cryptocurrency if all of a sudden you take over? That's you know, and that's exactly you pretty much hit the nail on the head on on the concerns that we have as estate planners and the challenges that trustees would have. Generally speaking, a the the general rule in trust it states that your trustee has to invest the funds pursuant to what we call the prudent investor rule, which just means it has to be reasonable, it can't be risky, et cetera, et cetera. Well, we all know that cryptocurrencies are extremely volatile. So, would your traditional trust actually tie the hands of the trustee to manage those assets, or would they just be required to sell all the assets immediately because they're too volatile and they don't have the authority to manage those pursuant to the prudent investor rule? So it's it's definitely something to look at.

Ron Bockstahler: So that's interesting, and it actually gets me thinking that we recently had Steve Mesero Mesero Financial on a webinar and talking to attorneys about how they can save more money for their retirement and shelter, you know, their income from taxes. And one of the big things they brought up was a cash balance plan. Are you familiar with the cash balance plan?

Gregg Garofalo:

No. Ron Bockstahler: And you can save up to 150 to 250 $1,000 of your income each year as an attorney if you're a solo. And you know, you can if you have employees also, but you got to contribute to their plan also. But it was really interesting to me that you can do that above and beyond a 401k plan, a five or an IRA plan. So there's a there's definitely a way to be sheltering a lot of your money from taxes today if you're an attorney making 500,000 a million dollars a year. You know, it just makes a lot of sense to look into that. And there was then when having Steve on the show was amazing, and I'm thinking, okay, if I'm doing that kind of savings. I better have a good estate plan in place, right? Because that becomes substantial very quickly.

Gregg Garofalo: Absolutely, and you know, to you know your point with having an investment advisor. A lot of times, if you have unique assets or you have an investment advisor that you're very passionate about and you feel they do a great job, a lot of times that's why we'll tell people. Then we need to sit down to your estate plan and we need to work them into it, in that maybe they'll be the investment advisor going forward, even after you pass away, because you feel very strong that this person number one does a good job. Number two knows what you want. You know, you guys usually with an investment advisor, an attorney who does your estate planning, you have somewhat of an intimate relationship with because they know a lot about you. They know a lot about your finances, your family makeup, and things of that nature. So, you know, Ron, you may say this is the person I want to be my investment advisor for the trust for my kids after I pass away. So, the only way to really ensure that is to make sure you have a good estate plan that dictates what your wishes are. It

Ron Bockstahler: becomes more and more important. So, anyone listening, the attorneys I know they're listening to the show. Make sure you're getting out there talking to an estate planning attorney and getting an estate in place. I know you know we tend not to do things for ourselves. That's kind of the nature of who we are. Yeah, these things become very, very important. So definitely recommend get out there and talk to an estate planning attorney and and you know listen to Steve Messero or guys in the financial industry to understand how you can save more money and you know defer tax tax payments for a little bit out there. So, Greg, we always finish off with the last question. What's the one thing in the legal profession that you would like to see changed?

Gregg Garofalo: The one thing in the legal profession like to see changed, like in the the business side of it, or just anything?

Ron Bockstahler: Leave it to anything. I'm generally focused on the business side, but if you got something other than that, bring it on.

Gregg Garofalo: Oh, I don't know. There's there's several different different things. I can tell you from an estate planning, and this is going to sound a really big thing. But with the way that the world is going, and we've all had to adapt to the changes of technology and working remotely, I personally don't feel like certain states have passed the rules and the laws that would really make it easier to keep up with technology as well. Illinois, for example, the notary law in Illinois, I don't think is where it should be and could be as compared to other states. It makes it very difficult to do remote signings and things of that nature. So I would like to see that our legislators try to keep up with the changing times to make our practice easier, which really makes our practice easier, which makes it easier for our clients.

Ron Bockstahler: Interesting, you bring that up because in many areas of law you can actually accept the digital signature, but in estate planning you still need the hard copy signature. You still need witnesses, so you got to get together eventually with your client at some and physically.

Gregg Garofalo: Yes, yeah, yes.

Ron Bockstahler: I see what you're saying. All right, well, Greg, great having you on your show. Really appreciate taking the time out, and look forward to talking to you down the road. Best way to reach Greg. Greg, what is your email?

Gregg Garofalo: My my email is [email protected]

Ron Bockstahler: and we will get that out there when we post the show. Also, so we'll make sure you guys contact information. Great guy to work with. Highly recommend Greg. Known him for a long time. So thanks for joining us on the show today, Greg. Yeah, thanks. Great having you. And thanks for absolutely, and thanks for listening to the One Thick Eight Lawyer Podcast. We'll be back in two weeks with Steve Mesero talking about you know kind of we just brought up how you can save even more money with a cash balance plan and protect your income. Have a great day, everyone!

Strickland Bonner: Thanks for listening to the 1958 Lawyer Podcast. If you like the show, tell a friend and please subscribe, rate, and review us on Apple Podcasts, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you'd like to hear more about Ron or Amata, go to AmadaOffices.com. All the links are also available in show notes.