When most families think about estate planning, they think about their estate attorney. That is appropriate — the estate attorney drafts the documents, understands the legal structures, and advises on the legal aspects of the plan. The attorney's engagement does not ordinarily include managing the family's investments or coordinating every financial implementation detail. That is where the wealth advisor comes in.
What the Estate Attorney Does (and Does Not Do)
The estate attorney's job is to design and draft legal structures: wills, trusts, powers of attorney, healthcare directives, and the specialized trust vehicles that accomplish the family's wealth transfer goals. What most estate attorneys do not do:
- Advise on which specific assets should be contributed to each trust structure
- Coordinate the investment strategy inside trust accounts
- Review beneficiary designations on retirement accounts and life insurance for apparent consistency with the overall estate plan
- Facilitate the family conversations about heir preparation, values, and governance
- Review the estate plan periodically and identify circumstances that may warrant changes based on portfolio developments, tax law, or family circumstances
These are not criticisms — they are simply outside the scope of legal professionals. They are, however, critical to whether the estate plan achieves its goals. And they fall squarely within the wealth advisor's role.
The Wealth Advisor's Contribution to Estate Planning
Asset Selection and Trust Funding Strategy
Deciding which assets to contribute to which trust structures requires both legal knowledge (the estate attorney) and investment judgment (the wealth advisor). The advisor can model the implications of contributing different assets: capital gains considerations, the investment potential inside the trust, the interaction with the family's overall portfolio, often in coordination with legal and tax advisers. The appropriate choices depend on the family's circumstances and should be reviewed by qualified professionals.
Portfolio Coordination Across Trust and Personal Accounts
Most families with significant estate plans have assets in multiple accounts: personal brokerage, IRAs, revocable trusts, irrevocable trusts, and entity accounts. Each has different tax characteristics. The wealth advisor coordinates the overall investment strategy across all of these accounts — considering asset location, rebalancing, and tax-loss harvesting, not just one account at a time.
Beneficiary Designation Review
Beneficiary designations on retirement accounts and life insurance often control the distribution of assets held in those accounts, subject to applicable law and account terms, rather than the instructions in a will or trust document. A well-drafted estate plan may not operate as intended if designations are outdated. The wealth advisor, who typically has visibility into relevant financial accounts, may be well positioned to identify potential inconsistencies and flag them for review.
Annual Estate Plan Monitoring
Estate plans are point-in-time documents. As portfolios grow, tax laws change, and families evolve, the plan that was appropriate five years ago may no longer be optimal today. The wealth advisor — in regular contact with the family and with the broadest view of the overall financial picture — is typically the professional who catches these gaps and coordinates the conversations needed to address them.
Heir Preparation and Family Governance
The wealth advisor often plays a significant role in preparing the next generation — introducing adult children to the family's investment portfolio, helping them understand the trust structures they will inherit, and facilitating conversations about the family's financial values and intentions. This is not a role the estate attorney or CPA typically plays, but it is essential for successful wealth transfer.
The wealth advisor's most important estate planning function may be coordination. The estate attorney, CPA, and wealth advisor each see a different part of the picture. Without someone actively ensuring that all three are working from the same current plan, gaps are almost inevitable. The wealth advisor is usually best positioned to play this coordinating role.
What to Look for in a Wealth Advisor for Estate Planning
- Experience with complex trust structures. Can the advisor discuss the investment implications of GRATs, SLATs, and dynasty trusts?
- Relationships with estate attorneys and CPAs. An advisor who works collaboratively with other professionals will be far more effective than one who operates in isolation.
- Proactive approach. The best advisors raise estate planning implications proactively when portfolio decisions have estate planning consequences — they don't wait to be asked.
- Next-generation engagement. Does the advisor have a track record of working with the children of clients and facilitating family conversations?
The Integrated Approach
For families with $10 million or more in assets, estate planning done well is not a project with a beginning, middle, and end — it is an ongoing process. Tax laws change. Portfolios grow. Families evolve. The estate plan that was appropriate when it was created becomes outdated by the time the events it anticipated actually arrive.
The families that navigate this well have a professional team — estate attorney, CPA, and wealth advisor — who are in regular communication, review the overall plan at least annually, and have agreed on who is responsible for each piece of the coordination. Increasingly, the wealth advisor plays the central coordinating role: not because they know more than the attorney or CPA in their respective domains, but because they are in more frequent contact with the family and have the broadest view of the overall financial picture.