Whether you are choosing your practice area, looking for an additional revenue stream for your law practice, or want to get out of a law practice area you detest, there is one niche in particular that you should consider. Estate planning.
It might seem like the last one you’d consider, but here are seven powerful reasons to think about starting an estate planning practice or adding it to your law practice.
1. Estate Planning Lawyers Provide a Meaningful Service
You might think we’d put the money first. Au contraire! If you know anything about the New Law Business Model, you know that we put service and meaning at the TOP of the list.
Fact is, estate planning is far more than paper pushing. Done right, you’re profoundly serving your community and dealing with issues they care about in ways that feel 100% fulfilling to you and your clients.
With the right systems in place, you not only provide peace of mind and ease of transition to a family during the most challenging time in anyone’s life—the loss of a loved one—but, you help them to be better parents, business people, and citizens of the community during their lifetimes.
2. Starting an Estate Planning Practice Fills a Growing Need in Your Community
A close second in the top reasons why you should consider starting an estate planning practice or adding estate planning to your existing practice is the fact that it’s such a needed service, especially now.
Considering the elephant in the room, “Estate planning attorneys are needed now more than ever to step forward in their communities to provide unbiased resources and guidance that provide the facts individuals are seeking to make informed decisions for themselves and their families during this time of uncertainty.” This was discussed at length in an article we recently published that outlines research on the growing demand for estate planning since the pandemic and the shortage of trusted advisors who can guide them.
Being able to provide your clients valuable legal services that help protect children and families during one the most uncertain times in modern history is something you will feel good about and be proud of.
3. Estate Planning is an Ever-Expanding Market
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you already know that the baby boomers are the biggest market on the planet. If they haven’t already, the boomers in your community are soon going to be ready to get down to the business of getting their affairs in order. Not only that, but the kids of boomers have or are now starting to have their own families, and they are gearing up to receive $3 trillion from their parents over the next 20-30 years (just from households with less than $500,000 in net worth). Plus they’re busy earning their wealth and starting to see the importance, with proper education, of planning for it now.
Fact is, every adult over the age of 18 needs estate planning, whether they know it or not. If you’ve already got clients in other practice areas, you’ve got a well of people with families—and you have a relationship with them so, (hopefully) they already trust you.) Once you learn how to educate people and package and convey these valuable services properly, your established relationship will become that much more profound, making you their trusted advisor.
Your job, once you know how, is to educate the people in your community about what estate planning is, and why they want to create a plan that leaves their loved ones a trusted advisor, and not just a set of legal documents. All while showing them how considering death during life isn’t anything to be afraid of, but instead, an excellent motivator to live their best life.
4. Clients Will Love You (& You Will Love Them)
When you provide these essential services and become the “go-to” lawyer and a trusted advisor, your clients love you. They are so grateful that they often show it with flowers, cards, and gifts. But even if they don’t, the work takes on such depth and connection that you genuinely love working with your clients. It feels good. It is fulfilling to provide your clients with peace of mind, knowing that their families will be protected and kept out of court and conflict. It feels good to be appreciated. Everyone wins.
“When I first found NLBM in law school I didn't believe that clients would love working with an attorney so much they would send gifts! Today one of my clients from March brought me these beautiful handmade baby quilts! It was so thoughtful it brought tears to my eyes! Thanks so much for helping me have a law practice I love!”
– Bethany C.
5. Referrals Are Easier to Come By
There’s rarely a conflict of interest in this law practice niche. Clients can refer you to their friends and family, business partners… whomever. Plus, since they love and adore you (if you do estate planning the right way, that is!), they naturally refer you to everyone they know.
What we see repeatedly is that once you are the “go-to” lawyer in your community, planning with you becomes a rite of passage for all the families. That’s when things get really good—and it’s not that hard to get there, with the right systems and support.
6. Starting an Estate Planning Practice Will Give You Full Control Over Your Schedule
One of the things we at NLBM hear over and over from our lawyers is how estate planning has given them the freedom to live a balanced life. Parents get more time with their kids, and can easily attend soccer games or school plays, or take the time to focus on a sick child when needed. Some lawyers even take every Friday off. Others only work three days a week—from home! (Read Jill G’s story here)
You don’t have to become a slave to your law practice when you are an estate planning lawyer, and you won’t have to be stuck in the courtroom either.
When your estate planning law practice is set up in the right way, it is the most flexible niche in terms of having control of your life, schedule, and income.
This brings us to the big kahuna: The money...
7. Building an Estate Planning Law Practice Is Lucrative
Many lawyers don’t understand the economics of an estate planning law practice. They think that it’s pennies here and there, but that only applies when selling form documents, that on their own provide little value.
When you are providing a comprehensive, meaningful service that genuinely makes a difference in your clients’ lives, it’s easy to create packages and a fee schedule that doubles or triples your usual fee. Not only that, but clients are actually, genuinely happy to pay your fees because of the value and continuing relationship you provide.
The cash flow in a well-structured estate planning practice will provide you with a minimum 33% profit margin and can be as high as 50%. And you can choose to bring in anywhere between $240,000 to more than a million dollars a year in revenue, depending on whether you structure your practice with other attorneys seeing clients, or just you plus outsourced support to help you serve more clients, or you want to do it all on your own.
The beauty of starting an estate planning law practice is that you get to choose. You can take on as many or as few clients as you wish. You can dial your practice up or down in order to prioritize your and your family’s needs as they arise. You can even structure your practice to have recurring revenue with a “membership” system that not only makes life easier for your clients, but gives you a reliable income.
Starting an estate planning practice is a win-win for you and your clients— and you will love it for all of these reasons, and more.
Starting an estate planning practice is an opportunity to utilize your law degree in a way that feels good, is lucrative, and that people in your community need. Whether you’ve been practicing for years as a solo lawyer or in a multi-partner establishment, or you are a new lawyer fresh out of law school, you can build a consistent, flexible, and profitable law practice with estate planning.
New Law Business Model is here to provide the training, systems, and guidance to support your success.
Schedule a call with a Law Business Advisor today and learn more about this opportunity to serve the families and businesses in your community who need you right now, in a truly meaningful way—and build a law practice and a life that you love.
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