Estate planning briefings a hit with work force

  • Published
  • By Shawn Jacobs
  • AEDC/PA
ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, Tenn. --  Wills, powers of attorney, advance directives and living trusts are types of important legal documents that many people tend to avoid thinking about.

But a portion of the Arnold Engineering Development Center work force is now better educated about those topics after almost 200 people turned out for two separate briefings on estate planning, July 22 and 25.

The briefings were delivered by Lt. Col. John H. Baker III, staff judge advocate for the National Guard's 118th Airlift Wing in Nashville and a Murfreesboro attorney who specializes in estates and related matters.

Colonel Baker said nearly everybody needs to have an estate plan, even if that means forcing oneself to tackle a sometimes unpleasant task.

"If you don't plan it, you're kind of leaving the burden on your family and heirs to sort out your estate after you die," Colonel Baker said. "It's a lot easier for you to plan it while you're alive and well than to try to have them figure it out after you die. You certainly want to make sure you've got a plan in place - whatever that plan is - that achieves your goals, which typically are to take care of the spouse if there's a surviving spouse, to take care of any minor children ... or to otherwise get the estate to the intended beneficiaries, and if we don't plan these things out that may not happen."

In addition to planning for death, virtually everyone also needs a plan in place that will assure one's wishes are carried out in the event of incompetency or disability.

"If we become incompetent and disabled and don't have a plan in place, then your family is going to be forced to go to court through an expensive process called a conservatorship to get things taken care of," Colonel Baker said. "Again, this puts a lot of burden on the family or loved ones when, if we took some time to plan those things in advance, we might be able to greatly reduce that burden and make sure that everybody's taken care of, including yourself if you're disabled."

Colonel Baker said the core documents needed in any estate plan include a will to take care of your estate when you die and powers of attorney, both financial and for health care, to take care of your affairs if you become disabled or incompetent. The core documents might also include a living will, which is an expression of your intent as far as medical care in the event that you are in a terminal or other dire medical condition with no hope of recovery.

Colonel Baker said he highly recommends having an attorney assist you in developing an estate plan.

"I believe that it is one of those areas that is very difficult to do in a self-help or on your own," he said. "There are too many matters there that could go wrong if it's not done right. If you make a mistake here it may not be correctable or it's going to be very expensive and difficult to correct.

"If you think about it, we're talking about planning for your long-term care if you become disabled and for the disposition of your entire life's estate, so it's probably worth spending some money on if you can do that. I don't want people to go out and purchase a document from the Internet or whatever and think they're getting legal advice or assurance that the documents will meet their legal needs because they specifically do not provide legal advice or any assurance that the documents will achieve their estate planning goals."

Anything you purchase over the Internet, Colonel Baker said, is usually generic in form - "kind of one size fits all." In real life, one size doesn't fit all.

"Everybody's families and situations are different; no two are exact," he said. "The more you can get it tailored to your situation I think the better off you'll be. If they consult a general practitioner, who works in multiple areas of the law, they're probably going to get a more basic service when it comes to the will. If you hire somebody who specializes in those areas [estate planning], then you'll probably get a more thorough review and get more time ... with the attorney and more planning will be involved."

In addition, AEDC's Legal Office can provide assistance in estate planning to active military, military retirees and dependents and reservists in a deployment mobilization status.

"The Legal Office can provide you with consultation on estate planning, but as far as document preparation, they prepare wills, powers of attorney, health care powers of attorney and living wills," Colonel Baker said. "They do not prepare living trusts. They do not do sophisticated tax planning such as inheritance and estate taxes. If you need these more complicated matters, then you need to consult a civilian lawyer who works in these areas."

Colonel Baker said he was pleased at the turnout for the estate planning briefings and thought it was beneficial that the base Legal Office planned the sessions.

"I think from the Legal Office's perspective, this is a great preventative law tool," he said. "If we can keep the people out here from having their own personal legal problems, they're probably going to be more focused on their job and able to do a better job."