Recent years have seen a change in the estate planning market. The apparent determination of President Bush and the Republican majority in Congress to eliminate the estate tax has made it difficult to commercialize estate planning.

Most estate planning attorneys know that there are many reasons (completely unrelated to tax reasons) why a person needs to do an estate plan. Most of these reasons have to do with family problems. Perhaps the parents have a son-in-law they don’t trust. Perhaps one of your children is a spendthrift. Perhaps one child works in the family business and others do not. These are all very good reasons to do an estate plan.

However, lawyers would be kidding themselves if they don’t admit that the hammer that has driven the estate planning market is fear of the estate tax. It is this fear that most often led people to stop procrastinating and create an estate plan.

Unfortunately, that fear has subsided considerably. Procrastination is back in fashion. As they currently exist, the estate tax laws actually reward procrastination, at least until 2010.

The bursting of the internet bubble and subsequent stock market plunge didn’t help, as many high net worth individuals decided their net worth wasn’t so high after all.

For many estate planning attorneys, a viable strategy to increase or maintain income has been to add elder law and Medicaid planning as an extension of their estate planning practices. This strategy makes a lot of sense. After all, Medicaid planning is asset protection of another kind and for another purpose. Instead of protecting someone’s life savings from estate tax, lawyers are saving someone’s (much more modest) life savings from nursing home costs.

There are several advantages in this market. For one thing, the number of people who qualify ($50,000 to, say, $600,000 net worth) is huge compared to the less than 2% of the population who need tax-based estate planning. On the other hand, some attorneys find great emotional and even spiritual satisfaction in helping these “salt of the earth” individuals and families. And from a purely marketing standpoint, these people are strongly motivated by a very real fear of the devastating effects of nursing home costs.

But lawyers who have decided to expand their practices in this area often have trouble knowing how to market their services.

There are four main markets for lawyers to target: the general public, referral sources in the financial/legal community, referral sources in the medical community, and the lawyers’ own client base.

Each is a topic unto itself, but let’s focus for now on the third item, getting referral sources in the medical community.

Definition of a target market

The first task is to define a target market: Who, among medical professionals, is best placed and most motivated to send referrals? A typical list might include hospital discharge managers, geriatric care specialists, gerontologists, licensed social workers, funeral directors, Medicaid administrators in nursing homes and assisted living facilities, nursing agencies, etc.

The next step is to identify the members of the target universe. That is, the lawyers must develop a list. This usually means buying a listing from a listing broker and then building it. For each person on that list, you should have a name, address, job title, phone number, email address, and fax number.

So lawyers need a strategy to deal with these contacts, or vice versa. This strategy is based on building relationships, and the only way to build relationships is to meet these people.

And finally, lawyers need a strategy to “trickle” their referral sources, that is, remind them of your existence on a regular basis.

ways to get there

Two methods that have proven to be very effective are the Medicaid Roundtable and the Life Care Planning Guide. Briefly, the Medicaid Roundtable consists of hosting a luncheon once a month and inviting members of the aforementioned target universe to attend (ideally no more than 15 people) for a discussion of issues related to the crisis in elder care. and the challenges faced by older patients. your families. After the host attorney gives a short talk (5-10 minutes), a free discussion ensues. The goal is not to solicit business or openly promote one’s practice, but rather to demonstrate one’s care and knowledge.

Which brings up an important point. When marketing to referral sources in the financial/legal community (financial advisors and other attorneys who can refer clients), the primary concern is money. Their underlying question is: How much of my client’s assets can they preserve?

With the medical community, the focus is compassion. His question is: Will you take good care of my patients, so that I can safely refer them?

These lunches should be followed by notes of thanks and appreciation for the guests’ contribution to the discussion.

Everyone on the original list should also receive (with your permission) the attorney’s newsletter and other communications on a regular basis, whether in print, fax, or email.

Another method that has proven to be very effective was that used by Sag Harbor, New York senior citizen attorney Meg Rudansky. Rudansky created a 24-page guide titled “Life Care Planning for Seniors and People with Resource Guide This booklet contains general information on housing options, paying for long-term care, caregiver support, and things for the But the most important section of the booklet is a list of area professionals who can help: elder advocates, geriatric care managers, hospices, mental health counselors, physicians, nursing homes, and adult day care centers.

But the key value in creating this book comes from the value of the relationships attorneys are able to establish with referral sources in the process of compiling their listings. By creating the brochure, attorneys can create multiple opportunities to meet face-to-face with all the key players in the elder law subculture. Lunch with a geriatric care manager on Monday, a meeting with the discharge planner or social worker at the hospital on Thursday, and one with the director of the City Department on Aging on Friday.

The purpose of these meetings is to learn from other professionals about services and programs for seniors so that the resource book continues to improve. By learning about these services and programs, attorneys can better advise their clients. And last but not least, these meetings open the door to building strong relationships with those who serve the same population as the attorneys, creating opportunities for tremendous growth in your practices.

Meanwhile, as the lawyers build their book, they are building credibility and a useful brochure. This project gives them the opportunity to start a relationship. Relationships lead to referrals. And referrals lead to customers.

The service works both ways

But just as important is how attorneys can grow their own knowledge base, add a valuable resource to their own network, and add tremendous value for their own clients.

If a lawyer interviews a gerontologist, for example, to include him in his book, he is making that gerontologist aware of his services, what kind of person he is and what he can do for his patients. It is a reasonable ambition to hope that the gerontologist will one day refer a patient to the lawyer for legal services.

But at the same time, the lawyer has learned a lot about the gerontologist: who she is and what she does. And the next time one of his customers needs this kind of service, he can pick up the phone and say, “Let me call my friend.” There is value to the lawyer, value to the gerontologist, value to his patients, and value to his own clients.

Seems as obvious as sunlight, doesn’t it?

Now multiply that simple process by 10, 20, or 50.

Imagine the network a lawyer can build and their value to their clients. Imagine the references. Imagine the good feelings that surround you. Now, imagine that the lawyer has a published guide that contains all this good information, and he can share these books with everyone he knows and many he doesn’t know.

By developing such a list of members of a target universe, hosting a Medicaid luncheon, “dripping” referral sources, and creating a senior resource guide booklet, an attorney may well be identified as the pre-eminent source of information on aging issues in general, and aging law in particular, in your region.