Kelley Rating (one asterisk = lowest, to five asterisks = highest):
- Ease of navigation, design of interface and learning curve *****
- Instructional documentation and help system ****
- Carries out the goal of the product as advertised ****
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Overall usefulness ****
The Ultimate Estate Planner is a website that offers an effective collection of resources for the trusts and estates practitioner. It includes legal document forms, books and DVDs, various articles and publications, decision making charts, podcasts, information on publications and marketers of products for the estate planning practice, as well as other resources.
The Ultimate Estate Planner was created by Philip Kavesh, an experienced estate planning attorney from California, and is an outgrowth of the “boot camp” training sessions conducted by Mr. Kavesh addressing cutting edge trust and estate products and the multi-disciplinary practice for estate and financial professionals. Its goal and market is stated as “to assist in the development and growth of estate planning professionals throughout the United States, including but not limited to estate planning attorneys, financial advisors, CPAs, life insurance agents, paralegals and much more.” The home page links to a list of Mr. Kavesh’s numerous speaking engagements.
This website includes an extensive blog addressing trust and estate topics, topical articles that are posted by the publisher and other contributors, estate practice products for sale and free articles and resources. New features and products are under development and the publisher indicates that this website will be substantially enhanced and expanded in the future.
What’s It All About?
The home page of The Ultimate Estate Planner presents an index to the services and publications offered by the publisher and links to the extensive tools and resources available on the site. It also lists new publications, upcoming teleconferences, recent blog entries and upcoming national events of interest to estate and financial planners.
The Ultimate Estate Planner works with a number of affiliates to present tools for the estate planning practice. They are listed on the web page: Our Affiliates.
This website includes a blog for estate planning professionals that features the new book, 2012 Estate Tax Planning Steps to Take Now,by Martin Shenkman, Jonathan Blattmachr and Robert S. Keebler (available for purchase and download as a PDF file). The blog includes a discussion of the new Form 706 by Joseph C. Mahon, covering, particularly, portability and unresolved claims, analysis of the Medicare Surtax by Bob Keebler and a review of Roth IRA conversion recharacterization by Michelle Ward and Bob Keebler. Numerous posts to the blog cover a wide variety of trust and estates topics, such as advanced estate planning, financial planning, IRA planning and special needs planning and offer repostings of significant articles from other publications.
You may sign up at Join Our Free E-mail Mailing List for email notifications of new features and information on activities sponsored by The Ultimate Estate Planner.
The Ultimate Estate Planner sponsors affordable and practical educational Audio Teleconferences covering various current topics, with some of the industry’s leading experts, including Bob Keebler’s Monthly Update Call. Replays of these teleconferences may be purchased from the On Demand Library.
The Ultimate Estate Planner offers various products and services for purchase consisting of:
- Products To Help You Market Your Practice: including estate planning sales tools, a customizable estate planning report and personal consultation and coaching.
- Legal Document Forms: including living trust planning documents and marketing tools, Phil Kavesh’s IRS-approved IRA Inheritance Trust®, training tools for irrevocable trusts and IRA beneficiary trusts and forms for personal residence trusts and pet trusts that are being developed for sale on the website.
- Practice Building Tools & Trainings: such as client meeting forms and information on hiring and training support staff and associates.
- Books, CDs & DVDs: on various estate and retirement planning subjects, including links to such publications by affiliates
- Consultation & Business Coaching: covering such areas as marketing and office management
- Other Personal and Business Coaching Services: links to services provided by other organizations
Special offers are provided for Wealth Counsel, NAELa and NAEPC members. You can request access to these special member discount pages by visiting the Discounts & Special Offers page
The website also includes a wide variety of valuable free resources, such as:
- Bob Keebler’s article and checklist on “Understanding the 3.8% Health Care Surtax;”
- Reports: “From the School of Hard Knocks: Thoughts on the Initial Estate Planning Interview” by L. Paul Hood, Jr and “33 Key Things to Know About Form 8939” from the Lackner Group;
- Sample client letters;
- Charts addressing numerous planning areas such as capital gains, estate tax elections, IRA and Roth IRA flowcharts and generation skipping;
- Podcasts by Bob Keebler;
- Articles and publications by Phil Kavesh and others on estate and IRA planning;
- Programs and training presented by various individuals and services;
- Magazines and subscriptions addressing estate and wealth planning; and
- Vendors and marketing companies providing services to estate and financial planners with links to them.
What About Help and Support?
This website is well organized and easily navigable. It includes a FAQ on Products that explains the nature, purchase and delivery of products for sale on the websiste and a FAQ on teleconferences. Telephone support is available regarding implementation of the publisher’s products.
How Do You Contact the Publisher?
The Ultimate Estate Planner is published by The Ultimate Estate Planner, Inc.
Address: 21250 Hawthorne Blvd, Suite 500, Torrance, CA 90503
Phone: 1-866-754-6477, Alt Phone: 310-792-7418, Fax: 310-464-3514
Website: http://ultimateestateplanner.com/
Bottom Line
The Ultimate Estate Planner is a comprehensive compilation of services, products, articles and practice aids and provides very useful resources for the trusts and estates (as well as financial) practitioner. It’s a service to the profession to have this wide range of materials available on a single website.
Trusts & Estates magazine is pleased to present the monthly Technology Reviewby Donald H. Kelley—a respected connoisseur of the software and Internet resources wealth management advisors use to further their practices.
Kelley is a lawyer living in Highlands Ranch, Colo. and is of counsel to the law firm of Kelley, Scritsmier & Byrne, P.C. of North Platte, Neb. He is the co-author of the Intuitive Estate Planner Software, (Thomson – West 2004). He has served on the governing boards of the American Bar Association Real Property Probate and Trust Section and the American College of Tax Counsel. He is a past regent and past chair of the Committee on Technology in the Practice of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel.
Trusts & Estates has asked Kelley to provide his unvarnished opinions on the tech resources available in the practice today. His columns are edited for readability only. Send feedback and suggestions for articles directly to him at [email protected].
