Gil Gordon CFP^® explores the new breed of law firms partnering with planners in serving estate planning. Such partnership can provide a powerful extension to your client value proposition and potentially save your clients thousands of dollars in legal fees.

In my last article on ‘Building and executing an estate planning value proposition within your practice’, I included Table 1 (see below) describing how advisers can partner with lawyers.

Table 1

Taking action: Please contact us via estateplanningforlife.com.au for copies of the previous articles in this series.

I believe that online lawyers provide planners with the opportunity to bring the legal solution in-house, thereby providing better service to clients at a lower cost.
I have only been able to identify four major online legal solutions in the Australian marketplace today. They are:

* thelegalhub.com.au

* topdocs.com.au

* viewLegal.com.au

* yodal.com.au

All are excellent solutions run by passionate skilled practitioners in the field of estate planning. Partnering and supporting financial planners is in their DNA and they see their role as enhancing your value proposition to clients.

Whilst the client outcomes in all cases are similar (high quality advice leading to quality documents), every firm is delightfully different and therefore, they will all appeal to different advice practices in different ways.

Disclaimer: In the comparison that follows, it is important to note that I have not attempted to assess competencies for high level legal skills or the pricing for complex or HNW clients, as I am addressing a scaled solution for the majority of clients.

Pricing

Skilled estate planning law firms are quite hard to find, particularly away from the major cities, and typically their prices are quite steep. As a metric for price comparison, I will use the following services as a base:

Typical mum and dad mirrored wills, with adult children beneficiaries.

Estate left to spouse and then to adult children via multiple testamentary trusts with bloodline restrictions.

2 x Power of Attorney.

2 x Power of Guardianship.

2 x Letter of Wishes.

At least one face-to-face or electronic meeting with a lawyer
to deliver the advice.

Anecdotally, physical law firms that have specialist estate planning lawyers will typically charge between $4,000 and $15,000 for quality estate planning advice for low to mid complexity clients. Whereas the online lawyers will typically charge between $900 and $2,200 for similar work.

This price differential enables the adviser to charge a healthy facilitation fee for their time (typically between one and three hours work) and still save the client thousands of dollars. In our practice, we typically charge between $1,100 and $2,200 for facilitation work with no price resistance. For greater complexity, this fee can be much higher.

Table 2 is a price guide for comparison only and assumes that planners are ‘facilitating’ the service by providing client information via an online portal. Not all sites publish their pricing and as such, the numbers are not guaranteed and may be subject to change. Also, there are distinct differences between the offerings and service standards, so you should not use price alone as a yardstick.

Table 2

All of the online solutions offer a lawyer facilitated (rather than planner facilitated) service, however, the cost is higher and the opportunity for planner fees are reduced. All firms, other than Yodal, will send documents directly to the planner or the client for signature, although depending on location (i.e. capital cities), the other three providers permit clients to visit an actual lawyer’s office (additional fees may apply). Yodal sends documents directly to the local lawyer, who liaises with the planner and arranges printing and execution of the documents at no additional cost.

Facilitation vs Legal Advice

By law, only lawyers are permitted to provide legal advice. So, what is legal advice?

Google defines it as “professional advice provided by a lawyer”, which is a definition that helps no-one! Because of the absence of a better definition of legal advice, it is important that planners partner with lawyers to protect themselves and their practice.

ViewLegal and Thelegalhub provide a certificate or letter confirming that the planner did not provide the legal advice to the named client. Topdocs and Yodal do not provide this document, however, they are confident that their process provides a similar, if not more general, guarantee.

I like the personalised client letter and feel it provides a more robust PI protection. In addition, we require the clients to sign an engagement letter that clearly delineates the fees and services provided by the law firm and the advice business. In this letter, the client waives any right to legal action against the planner relating to the estate planning services facilitated by the advice business.

Taking action: Please contact us via estateplanningforlife.com.au for a copy of the client engagement letter with disclaimers and client waivers.

NSW

It should be noted that in NSW the law requires that PoA and Guardianship documents must be co-signed by a lawyer or clerk of the court and cannot be signed by a person, such as Justices of the Peace. Some of the online law firms have relationships with local lawyers who are willing to certify these documents for a small fee. The clerk of the local court will do this for free by appointment.

The four providers

thelegalhub

Thelegalhub is a true legal marketplace and the company’s director, Brant Dillon, who was also one of the founders of Australia’s first virtual law firm, said their goal is to act as the adviser/client advocate and ensure their lawyers deliver quality and value.

They are not lawyers and do not provide the legal advice but once you have entered your client data into their system, they seek fixed price quotes from their panel of lawyers who are located in all the major capital cities and can provide both virtual and face-to-face meetings.

You will be provided with a fixed price quote and scope of works via return email within three days and this should then be approved by your clients. Alternatively, a ‘Legal Concierge’ service is offered, where the client is contacted directly by the lawyer and the planner has a lesser role in the conversation.

Their entry process is fast and simple at around 10-12 minutes, with the planner not required to input instructions around appointorship, trusteeship and construction of any testamentary trusts or structures in the wills. Thelegalhub expect the planner to provide an extract of file notes that the lawyers read in providing legal recommendations or they will accept briefing reports from providers, such as Estate Planning for Life and Astute Wheel, with no additional data entry required.

In my experience, the pricing is quite predictable and doesn’t change once a scope and quote has been issued. Draft documents are emailed for proofing prior to the online client presentation and final documents are printed, bound and mailed to the planner or client.

Thelegalhub also provides regular webinars on technical matters to planners, as well as contact with the relevant lawyers on more technical client matters.

ViewLegal

ViewLegal offers a comprehensive and arguably the most cost-effective online service, with a range of services far beyond estate planning. ViewLegal founder, Matthew Burgess is passionate about using technology to create exceptional value for planners and clients. ViewLegal have around 20 lawyers on staff, they conduct regular webinars and education sessions, and have a range of books and ebooks available for sale.

ViewLegal’s input of instructions process is quite substantial and detailed, taking between 30-60 minutes to input information. This will be substantially less for subscribers to the Astute Wheel service, which can automatically upload data into ViewLegal’s system.

ViewLegal states that once a scope is accepted, their pricing rarely changes and never without prior planner/client approval. It has a four tiered service level from which the planner can choose and it offers a comprehensive planner support program, including more than 20 publications, a weekly blog, five online courses, monthly webinars and a national roadshow.

Topdocs

Topdocs Legal is one of Australia’s oldest and most respected online law firms. Topdocs has provided a wide range of documentary solutions to accounting, financial planning and legal professions for many years.

Topdocs enterprise manager, Chris Blair says it has around 11 lawyers on staff, with offices in Melbourne and Sydney, while other areas are served by the internet. Topdocs claims that 99 per cent of its estate planning work is completed for the quoted price.

Topdocs has a service called Topdocs Protect, where the client completes instructions for an instant online will, with the option of lawyer input if required. Its planner facilitated input process is detailed but relatively quick at around 20 minutes, which is followed up by a conversation with the lawyer.

Topdocs provides excellent training, plus monthly webinars and free online phone support to financial planners.

Yodal

Yodal is quite innovative in this space and like thelegalhub, it acts as a go-between for local lawyers and planners. As such, it’s not a law firm. Associated with Redchip Lawyers, Yodal produces documents automatically once data has been input by the planner and sends those documents to a lawyer of the planner’s choice within minutes. The lawyer proofs the documents and delivers the legal advice to the client.

Yodal’s model is extremely quick and it’s possible to go from start to finish within hours for urgent client matters. This is a genuine differentiator between Yodal and the other suppliers.

Yodal has integrated with Astute Wheel, so that with one click, the client’s data is collected and interpreted by Yodal to automatically generate ready-to-sign estate planning documents.

Yodal also provides a recommendation email to the planner explaining the nature and reasons for the selection of documents appropriate for the client.

Whilst Yodal is still a relative newcomer, Redchip has been around for a long time and this model has the advantage of encouraging both the planner and a nearby lawyer to find each other and collaborate.

Yodal will ‘on board’ a new lawyer for the planner and it’s possible to have a panel of local lawyers to deal with. Yodal’s production of the documents and engagement with the local lawyer creates alignment between the lawyer and the planner’s services, so the risk of advice discord is effectively eliminated. It also runs regular training sessions for planners, either in person or via webinar.

Proper handover

Estate Planning software, such as Estate Planning For Life or Astute Wheel, produce briefing documents that can be provided to the online lawyers, and Topdocs, Yodal and ViewLegal have a data upload service from Astute Wheel. Topdocs, Yodal and ViewLegal have a detailed online client fact find that can be completed, whereas thelegalhub relies more on planner notes and other attachments.

My view is that proper handover of client information to the legal service provider is quite important from a PI perspective, so our practice uses an Estate Planning Record which captures all key information, as well as identifying ‘red flag’ issues that the lawyers need to be aware of.

Taking Action: Contact us via estateplanningforlife.com.au for a sample copy of a typical Solicitor Handover Document.

Conclusion

Anecdotally, many planners struggle to establish reciprocal relationships with law firms, which obviously limits the utility of promoting these services to clients. With the new breed of online solutions, there is alignment and the potential to be paid for the work, whilst still saving clients a substantial amount of money.

Coupled with the opportunity presented in meeting and engaging with the next generation, these online solutions present a genuine opportunity for advice businesses.

Gil Gordon CFP^® is proprietor and senior adviser at RI Lower Hunter.
Gil is the architect of Estate Planning For Life, a scaleable web-based system that facilitates the delivery of estate planning solutions in accounting and financial planning practices. Gil can be contacted on (02) 4013 6070 or at [email protected]