FAQs

We help you create your personal legacy. Estate planning is about much more than just the transfer of your money and property. That’s why we’ve developed a process to help you transfer your most important personal assets to your loved ones – your intellectual, spiritual and human assets – who you are and what’s important to you.

Before you engage an estate planning lawyer to help you plan for the well‐being of your money, your family, and your life, there are questions you need to ask. You need to ensure that the estate plan you put in place will really work when it’s needed and won’t end up just a pile of worthless paper.

Your first step is to schedule a Family Wealth Planning Session with us. Please make sure you’ve read up on what we’ll do together in that meeting before you come in, so that you come in prepared to be educated, informed and empowered to make decisions. Call us at 619-987-3532, or schedule a 15 minute intro call to get started on your Family Wealth Planning Session.

Many estate planning attorneys take a “one-size fits all” approach with their clients; they do this so that they can work with as many people as possible in a short period of time. In addition to leaving the client with a totally cold and impersonal experience, this way of planning can lead to unintended results in the long run. Conscious Legal is different.

Here’s the most important part for you to know about this: you will be making informed, educated, and empowered decisions for the people you love, not just shopping around based on price. And the best part is that as part of this process, you will actually choose your own fee based on your budget and the planning options that are most important to you. There truly is no one size fits all choice. We have created a process, though, to educate you quickly and effectively so that you can make empowered, informed choices about what you want for the people you love, so that you aren’t simply choosing the cheapest option because you don’t have any other basis for making your decisions.

If you do not have a plan, we will cover the plan that the state of California has for you. If you do have a plan, we will review your current plan with you. (We call this an estate plan review and check-up). If you are not happy with your current plan (or the plan that California has for you), you will tell us what you would want to change, and we will look at the most effective, efficient and affordable way to achieve your goals.

If you have existing estate planning documents, please make sure that we have your existing documents in our office at least a week before your meeting so that we can review them prior to meeting with you.

When lawyers do not take the time to listen and consider their clients’ personal circumstances, their estate planning documents do not end up reflecting what they really want to happen. And usually, there is no review or updating, so the plan quickly becomes outdated and does not work when it is needed most. Even if you end up paying less for one of these “churn and burn” plans, things end up much more expensive in the long run. Plus, you leave your family or loved ones at risk of having to deal with an expensive and unnecessary court process during a time of tremendous grief.

If your children are adults, we help you weave them into your estate plan with more care and forethought than most other lawyers ever consider.

We plan for your life, not just your death, and ensure that if you have minor children, they are never raised by anyone you wouldn’t want or taken into the care of strangers.

As you can imagine, we are asked this question quite frequently. And, it’s a good question that we want to answer for you as clearly as we can, given there is not a “one-size fits all solution” for every client, and I would run quickly away from any lawyer who can tell you exactly what your plan would cost via email or over the phone, without a comprehensive personal process. This is exactly why most estate plans fail. People shop around based on price (because they don’t know any other way to shop for an estate plan), and end up with a traditional plan, which is a set of documents that do not actually work when they are needed.

We’ve priced our estate planning at the intersection of affordability and effectiveness. That’s why we start all of our plans with a Family Wealth Planning Session, which is designed to get you more financially organized than you have ever been before, and ensure that no matter what happens, none of your hard-earned assets will be lost to the State Department of Unclaimed Property.

Our plans range from $2,000 for a basic plan to $8,000 for a very complex plan, and everywhere in between. During our session, you will pick the Level of Planning, and the fee, that is right for you based on your needs and goals.

The Planning Session Fee is $750; however, we agree to waive that fee if you agree to do some pre-meeting homework ahead of time to make our meeting as productive as possible, and secure your appointment with a credit card.

Yes! The session is $750 if you come in unprepared and uneducated. If you commit to doing some pre-meeting homework and to show ready to learn and take charge of your family's future, we will waive the session fee.

Those above fees are applicable if you come in fully uneducated, but can be waived if you commit to doing a little pre-meeting homework ahead of time.

All of our plans include complimentary changes for up to 90 days after you sign your documents. From there, you have the option to join our Client VIP Membership Program, which allows for significant discounts on future amendments as well as many other benefits. We see the signing of your plan as only the beginning of our relationship - our goal is to serve as your Personal Family Lawyer for life, so that you and your family always have someone to turn to, and your estate plan keeps up with your life, your assets, and the law.

All of our fees are fixed fees agreed to in advance, so there are never any surprises. At our initial meeting, you will select the level of planning and fee that works best for you.

If you have received a complimentary session and have secured it with a credit card, nothing will be charged on your card so long as you keep your appointment and complete your paperwork ahead of time. We understand this policy of securing your appointment with a credit card may seem unique. So is our law firm. We go above and beyond to those who are looking for a long-term relationship with a trusted advisor. We expend most of our energy providing an exceedingly high degree of service to our existing clients, and limit the number of new clients we see each week. As a result, we must secure your appointment time so that if something comes up and you can’t attend your appointment, we will have enough advance notice to open the spot to a waiting client.

We don’t just prepare a set of legal documents for you and send you on your way. We make sure your assets are owned in the right way, your kids’ well-being is properly planned for, everyone you’ve named in your plan knows what to do if anything happens to you, and make sure that none of your assets become part of the $58 billion of unclaimed assets across the United States.

During our meeting together, we will guide you to look at what would happen for your loved ones and to your assets if something were to happen to you. Then, we’ll review what you want to happen and help you create a roadmap to implement your plan as easily as possible. Clients who have procrastinated for years routinely tell us how easy and seamless we make this process.

Even if you never do any planning with us, the Family Wealth Planning Session alone is a hugely valuable process, because you will create a full inventory of your assets and ensure your loved ones knows what you have. Then, when we meet in person, we will review everything you own, and discuss everyone you love, and you will understand exactly what would happen in the event of your death or incapacity.

Conscious Legal is right for you if you want to know that your plan will actually work when you and your loved ones need it most. If all you want is a set of form legal documents, there are plenty of online resources you can use to create them, or you can go to a traditional estate planning lawyer. But if what you want is a truly personal and concierge experience, and to have a trusted advisor who will be there for you and your family in all stages of life, then we might be the right fit for you.

We help you get your legal and financial house in order by helping you make smart choices about things like buying insurance, saving for college, and retirement planning so you never spend more than you have to or get taken advantage of by unscrupulous sales people.

We review your plan at least every 3 years. We foster a lifetime, ongoing relationship with our clients. Throughout your life, things change. You change; your assets change; your family situation changes; the law will definitely change. When planning with us, your plan will keep up with those changes.