You can have encyclopedic knowledge of trusts and estates, but a pair of speakers at the FAE's Trust and Estate Taxation Conference said that if you don't know the ins and outs of the life of the client and their family, none of that will lead to a satisfying experience. 

"It's easy to talk about this but in truth garbage in, garbage out: if you don't really get a good foundation on this family and have good interpersonal skills, good intuitive skills, [you won't be equipped to implement their estate plan]," said Robert Barnett, a partner at Capell Barnett Matalon & Schoenfeld LLP. 

However many estate specialists are challenged by the fact that, unlike their CPA or their financial adviser, they do not have a years-long relationship with the client. This means the practitioner must work quickly to understand the particular facts and circumstances surrounding the family in order to best serve them. For instance, Barnett said he has worked with many blended families. In some cases, the step-children are treated as full members of the family, while in others the relationship is more distant. 

"The plan needs to be very carefully tailored. For instance, in one will you say [the estate] goes to issue, but they view... children from both sides in a second marriage as their own children. You better be very careful because you could be disinheriting the very people they want to inherit," he said. 

Similarly, citizenship is something else that the professional will want to understand very fast. One or even both spouses may not be U.S. citizens, something that he said has become increasingly common in his practice. Foreign spouses tend to complicate things from a tax perspective, such as how it relates to marital deductions and gift tax limitations, so "you need to be very focused on that in the beginning." 

These things can also play into the particular goals the family has with this estate plan; for instance, is there a child with special needs who will need care? Is there a particular asset that needs protecting? Where does the family's wealth come from? Is it in real estate? Securities investment? A business? These things will all impact what the overall goal of the estate plan will be. 

Gregory L. Matalon, another speaker and a Capell Barnett Matalon & Schoenfeld partner, pointed out that family dynamics can also come into play in the courts, because "when the rubber hits the road" a judge needs to ultimately approve the will. But he raised a hypothetical of a mother who wanted to pass on her estate to two of her children, but leave a third son out entirely. While the third son could theoretically sign a waiver allowing this to happen, Matalon said it's much more likely he will try to challenge it in court. Should that happen, he said, prior groundwork is critical, and a big part of that comes down to the client. 

For a will to be valid, the client must understand in a general way: the nature and extent of the property being willed; who their family and friends are; and who they want to get the property. This, Barnett noted, is a fairly low standard, and even people with dementia can theoretically meet it, but it's important that everything is documented in the proper way, with witnesses and without family. 

"So we know we have to go through court, so we want to make sure when we put this plan together we're all taking notes, all the witnesses are in the room, the testator is in the room herself with none of the children or anyone else, so we know no one is holding a gun to her head or saying I won't drive you home if you don't leave everything to me," he said. 

This can go along way in proving the legitimacy of the will, but as an added layer of defense, Matalon said he has used interim clauses as well. This is where someone doesn't necessarily get nothing but gets much less than the others; if they contest the will, they stand to lose even that sum, which makes it less likely they will do so at all. But then he said there have been cases where the client well and truly wanted to leave a family member with nothing, in which case he suggested having multiple subsequent wills; the family member cut out will need to challenge each one in turn, which will be time consuming and expensive. 

Beyond knowing the family, Barnett also pressed the importance of knowing the assets, and to do this, the professional needs more than just the family's word on what they are and how much they're worth. Families, he noted, can keep secrets from each other but the professional does not want to be caught out of step. 

"You are not just going to ask the client, you're going to confirm it. You are going to get the statements, get the deed, get the beneficiary designation in writing from the pension and the life insurance," he said.