I hope you are having a great summer and that you are able to make it out to see the Diamondbacks (or your local professional baseball team) play this summer! If you go, and they are not handing out baseball player bobbleheads, I thought you might enjoy a digital bobblehead from an estate planning attorney that I know. In addition, while you are there, recall these fun baseball analogies and double entendres regarding the importance of getting your estate plan completed or updated.
In baseball, the best teams don’t just show up and wing it. They have a game plan — a lineup card, a bullpen strategy, a “closer” ready to protect the lead. Your family’s financial future deserves the same preparation.
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Yet millions of Americans step up to the plate of life without the most important play in their arsenal: a will or a trust. As an estate planning attorney, I’ve seen too many families left scrambling in extra innings — sorting through probate courts, family disputes, and frozen assets — all because someone assumed there was always more time to get their affairs in order. There isn’t always a ninth inning. The question isn’t if the game will end. It’s whether your team will know what to do when it does.
Every season, teams lose games not from bad plays, but from errors — failing to field a ball that was right there. In estate planning, the most common error is procrastination. “I’ll do it when I’m older.” “We don’t have enough to worry about.” “It’s too expensive.”
The truth: dying without a will or trust in Arizona — called dying “intestate” — means that the Arizona statutes decide who gets what. Arizona has a default playbook, and it doesn’t know your family, your wishes, or your values. That blended family situation, the estranged relative, the charity you care about — none of that matters to intestate succession law.
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Even young, healthy people with modest assets need at minimum a simple will and powers of attorney. If you own a home, have children, or have anyone who depends on you, a living trust deserves serious consideration. The cost of setting one up is almost always far less than the cost of probate — in time, money, and family stress. The best time to create your estate plan was yesterday. The second best time is right now.
Your family deserves to know the game plan. When the final out comes — and someday it will — the greatest gift you can leave them isn’t just assets. It’s clarity. It’s a roadmap. It’s the peace of mind that comes from knowing you thought of them enough to plan ahead. You wouldn’t send your team onto the field without a strategy. Don’t leave your loved ones without one either.
Schedule a meeting with our estate planning team to draft or update your estate plan. It only takes one meeting to get your game plan started or updated. Let our team help your family avoid the errors with your heirs.
If I can assist you, your family, or your friends with any estate planning, probate, trust, guardianship/conservatorship, or business planning issues, please feel free to call me or e-mail me. As always, I look forward to continuing to serve my clients by giving each one of them “an EVEN BETTER legal experience”.
All the best,
John