Outsourcing the Human Side of Estate Planning

Though estate planning has long been driven by the desire to duck or downsize estate taxes, there's also the human side.

In days of old, the human side was the province of the family lawyer and the kindly old trust officer.

Today, according to this Wall Street Journal article, the human side has become a specialty, often outsourced to “family wealth consultants.”

Stands to reason: If estate-tax planning shrinks in importance, the human side will grow. Reports the Journal article:

Financial-services firms, including units of Wachovia Corp. and Merrill Lynch & Co., have launched services designed to help their most well-heeled clients talk more openly about their money issues. Next spring, U.S. Trust, a unit of Charles Schwab Corp., is planning to offer a new three-day retreat for families featuring Shaking the Tree. And Mellon Financial Corp.'s Private Wealth Management group recently started a new program called "Five Steps to Healthy Family Governance" which includes a screening of clips from "Born Rich," a documentary film that examines how young heirs deal with wealth. About 25 families have gone through the Mellon program already.

The goal of all this: to teach families to better communicate about their finances to prevent future problems and to mediate family disputes before they become expensive and public court battles.

The article notes that the American Bar Association's committee on "Emotional and Psychological Issues in Estate Planning" now has 59 members, up from five members five years ago.

This side bar to the Journal article gives a plug for the importance of choosing an independent trustee, such as a bank, to avoid sibling rivalry: