Legal Life Planning for Families, with Attorney Debbie Babb

0:02 So, estate planning, there's a wide range and people call me often for referral and I would say there's a range of services from kind of do-it-yourself, kind of go to Lowe's and buy the parts and build your own house to much more hands-on control and full service. And as a professional, that's what I expect. I came across Debbie Babb through a mutual friend who actually went to one of her estate planning events and saw in person the quality of her of her service, but more importantly, her commitment to customers. And Debbie Babb, thank you for joining us. Debbie Babb Law, Legal Life Planning for Families. Thanks for joining us today. My pleasure. Thanks so much for having me. And this is not the first time we've spoke, but what comes across to me clearly is your not just building a business and building hours, but your commitment to serving families the right way as you see it. Talk a little bit about your motivation and your vision of your practice. Yes, and oh, first to correct you, I don't bill by the hour because I think that puts me and the client on opposite teams. So, I do 99% of my work is flat fee. I want the client to share. I don't want them to be afraid to pick up the phone or send that email or provide me with information. I'll be the judge if I need it or not. So, my at the heart of what I'm doing, my plans have to work for my clients' families when the family needs it to.

1:26 Really, estate planning with a little bit of an exception for incapacity planning, which we can talk about later, but this is really what you do because you love your family. And I had a signing at an estate plan signing this morning and I was showing, you know, walking the client through the trust and I said, "Actually, this isn't even for you. It's for the lawyer who's going to be administering your trust when you pass away." And so, that means we have to keep all the assets get the assets in the trust and keep them in the trust and then keep that plan up-to-date over time. And then also communicate to a certain degree what the plan is and who is doing what role people are playing. There's a lot of facets that go into a plan to make sure that it works when a client's family needs it to. You know, you just rattled off some gold there and I'm going to break it down cuz I don't I just don't think you appreciate how much you know your clients need to learn from. So, let me take kind of the uneducated at least legally uneducated perspective and start with number one. The first step is the plan has to get everything into the plan. All right, the plan I always tell people it's like buying a safe box for your house to safeguard your important papers, maybe jewelry, coins, collectibles.

2:48 You can go to wherever you buy it at, wheel it home and put in the middle of your free of wherever you're going to hide it, but if you don't put the stuff in the box and spin the wheel, even then you think an estate plan, if you don't get everything into the plan, like you said, then the whoever's going to administer the plan is going to open up and say, "Well, that's great, but there's nothing here. All the assets are on paper." Talk about what that means and then what steps you take to make sure everything gets in the plan. Right. So, the plan, let's talk about a trust-based plan. The trust is just a vehicle, right? And it's just a written document. You're nominating who's going to wrap up your life for you and you're going to talk about in your trust who gets what. But unless And so, I often think of a the trust, this is analogy I like to use, is a little toy wagon. The wagon is the trust, but we have to put the teddy bear, the Legos, the dolls, and whatever other toys, the assets, we have to put them in the wagon for the trust to do its job. So, And so, what are I'm a real estate agent and you know, I think I know the answer to this, but let me just say the obvious thing that gets left out of the wagon is the real estate. And the reason it is obvious because A, you know, it's by it's most commonly the largest assets of the estate and B, it's the easiest one because when you open a bank account, you know, they ask you, "Do you have anybody you want to have as a beneficiary?" And stocks and bond accounts have that and it may or may not hold up and there's a But better to have an attorney to do all that, but at least it's something. With real estate, if you buy the house in your name and you pass, it's not in the wagon.

4:38 Right. Right. Right. And this is the problem that I see when people do take the DIY route, like the Lowe's route to build the house instead of using the professionals because those programs, those online programs at the stationery store programs, they don't tell you that you can't it's not enough to just list the address of the house on an exhibit to the trust. You have to have a deed into you have to change the you change the title on the trust but on the on the proper the real estate by deeding the home into the trust. And with very few exceptions, you really need a lawyer to do that. So, any real estate has been in business a while and lists properties had the experience where you say to the customer, "I noticed you have the property name of your names Bob and Mary Smith." "Oh, no, we have a trust." Interesting, I looked at the prelim or I looked at the thing. "You sure?" "Oh, no, we have a They run off and they come back with this beautiful binder, usually like a Naugahyde or fake leather, sometimes leather, and it's thick, you know, and all kinds of tabs and they open up and the top page has the instructions she's saying, "Oh, don't forget to notarize this and take it to the county recorder and it's blank. I know. I know.

5:53 So, now you have a fancy notebook, but you don't have an estate plan. Right. Exactly. And I think that's why my practice is to take as much off the client's plate as possible because I know that when I present the deed and other asset transfer documents to the client, I have them sign it and it's notarized right in front of me and I take it and I'm sending it to the title company for recording. So, I know that it's been done. So, why would I

6:23 Leave that to chance and I don't get that. Right? Like and they don't know. I mean, I've talked to attorneys who tell me why and obviously there's a cost. I get it. It's more expensive for attorney to do it than the customer. I get it. But at some point, there's a minimum the customer is paying you to get done and that includes that particular activity. Right. You ask the customer what they think it's going to be, for sure that's something they think they're paying for. Right. Right. Right. Right. I agree. Like that Why would the customer think that they would have to draft the deed? Where would they have that knowledge and how would they know to like work with the title company? I mean, they'd have to go down to the you know, the public records office to record it themselves. Like they're not going to do it. Yeah, no. I think that is really outdated model and in this day and age, lawyers need to be providing much more service. And it's such a low bar, too. You know, I'll just say to shout out to attorneys watching, there are services that can expedite this if you want to pay a little bit fee. There's online notary services that are recognized by title companies accepted. There's online recording companies that will record for the LA County recorder in particular, but other counties as well to record these documents. There's no excuse. But the one thing that the attorney I think has to do is prepare the grant deed because otherwise, who's going to do it? All right, you right?

7:53 You could the customer copy and paste the document into a grant deed themselves. Of course, they can do it, but you know, I don't know about you. I've seen many cases where it was all about a typo on the APN or typo on the on the address and I've been involved as a Realtor® in on these cases where it's 613 but 611. You know, the title company, if they don't accept it, you're going to court. It may not be probate, but it's something like a probate and it's probably worse. Right. Right. It's just too expensive and not worth it. Also, I think that well, I don't know that a lawyer would be liable for not doing it, but you're not adding value. I think at a minimum, you need to be putting the property into the trust for the client.

8:36 I hate to judge other people's business. Look, there are pure online companies. And then and even they pretend, you know, the Here's the problem. If the online said hey, we're all do-it-yourself, you know, it's like Lowe's. Go pick up the form here, do this here, do that. Here's your instruction sheet, make a grant deed, then at least you know you're going to Lowe's, you need a tool belt, you need some basic tools. But they talk to the customer as though they're going to do anything for them. And they're not. And so, whatever ball they drop, and I know the statistics internally at these companies are very low effective rate of actually And customers oftentimes are not served and I just find in court so many Heggstad petitions, which is what we have in California just try to correct this, are from these DIY plans and it's no cheaper than probate, it's no easier than I mean, I don't need to debate it, but generally speaking, it seems to me it's as expensive or painful or longer than probate. Oh, yep. I can tell you I've got several Heggstad petitions on my desk right now and the clients are pulling their hair out and I feel bad. Like, you know, courts will continue things on their own motion. Like, you know, sometimes the judge needs a day off and the client barking at me like, "How can this happen? Like, you need to go fight this." And I'm like, "There is nothing to fight." I said, your parents should have done an estate plan and by the way, like let's get yours done now so you don't have to, you know, your spouse doesn't have to deal with this.

10:08 Dodgers won the World Series and hearings were delayed for 90 days. I mean, it's great they won the World Series, I'm a Dodger fan, but the LA County court had to close down because of the parade route and so it I don't care what you had scheduled that day, it was going to be rescheduled and in certain matters, of course, but in probate for large part. So, yeah, and people often say, well, it's just a Heggstad petition cuz they learned the term, but they haven't done one and I can tell you today, in LA County, your filing time is 6 months from filing a petition to a hearing date. Now, you can there's things you can try to expedite it, doesn't mean you're going to get it, but the standard that the default is a 6-month hearing date. That's not faster than a probate necessarily to sell a house. Right. And they're, you know, they're no cheaper than if you'd done it right in the first place.

10:49 Yes. Not cheaper Well, way more expensive than an estate plan. Right. Oh, yeah. Yeah. If you could sell an estate plan to take the Heggstad back in time and do an estate plan and keep the difference, you'd be a wealthy lady. Right. Right. Right. Yep. Okay, so there's funding the plan from a real estate perspective. Talk a little bit about some of the challenges you've seen customers have and that you try to avoid or prevent on non-real properties. Let's say for example, stocks, bonds, bank accounts. Again, they have they have beneficiary, you know, forms and processes. Why is it important for you as an attorney to kind of know those, update those, include those in your plan? Right. Well, often the financial institution isn't having the client fill out a beneficiary designation when they open the account. It just depends on who you get that day. So, I see a lot of financial accounts without beneficiaries designated. And if there's a trust, we need to get those assets into the trust. And by the way, we can't bring a Heggstad petition if those accounts didn't exist as of the date the trust was created. I have a couple of years ago, one of my clients was the successor trustee and one of her uncle and her uncle had done a trust. He had a trust and they later inherited a bunch of money and stuck it in an account with a well-known financial institution and it was put into an account in his own name and not in his trust. So, we couldn't use a Heggstad petition and we had to probate it.

12:35 That's fine. Yeah. So, yeah, or the flip side is the money is there and you think you have a beneficiary designated. I had a family member who passed and they had a bank account and we and the state needed some cash to kind of get things rolling. It was a bank account that the trustee was supposed to be on the beneficiary side to get the money and there was like and then they could kind of roll things, get started with their initial expenses. Oh, turns out that was filled out at the old Bank of America branch and they consolidated branches. We don't have that form. Yeah. Going back to those days, right? And that happens a lot with IRA accounts where the custodian changes and after two or three custodians and they change all the time. Right. And you think you're Fidelity and you are, but the custodian to the account is some other entity and the paperwork gets lost or misplaced or dissolves online or something. Right. And you get these random mailings, right? Where they tell you to update your beneficiary, but you don't understand the form and you don't know why you're getting it. And now, for good reason, we're all on heightened alert, right?

13:40 Right. Right. And but to fill it out? Or online? Who wants to go online to fill it out? To me, that just sounds like a prescription for disaster. If somebody has access to your account, you're logging into your you're getting an email and you're logging into your securities account with all your retirement and your securities in it. Right. Right. So, what happens when somebody, let's say, opens account at Fidelity and they say, "Okay, I'm going to designate my son and daughter." They may have to meet two heirs. The estate plan maybe, you know, they work out the numbers, they say, "Well, really we want all the securities to go to the son because the daughter's going to get the real estate." Where does the conflict between the estate plan and the designation in the institution's hands? Right. Yeah, so we have to something that I make sure that I'm looking at with my clients is when we're doing the estate plan, we're looking at what assets are going into the trust and so then they're going to be subject to the terms of the trust. And then what assets aren't going into the trust? Like the life insurance, the retirement accounts, those pass by beneficiary designation. And so we want to keep things equal, right? Like, I mean, maybe if that's the client's intent, but we don't want to forget that there's these accounts with beneficiary designation. You see Well, we see it, you know, not all the time, but it happens where somebody, you know, fresh out of college, they're at their first job, they've got their, you know, 401k and they name their girlfriend at the time as the beneficiary. They break up, like never think to update You just don't know at that age, you know, what this means. And you forget about it and that it, you know, the account will grow over time, unbeknownst to you, and then something happens and you're now married, you have kids and not to the girl Not you're not married to the person you were dating in your 20s and your intent is for everything to go to your spouse and possibly your kid, you know, depending on what your plan says. And so, keeping those beneficiaries up to date and knowing what accounts you

15:44 Have I spend a lot of time with my clients. I call it the treasure map, right? Like, we want a whole, accurate list of accounts and we want to keep that up to date over time because assets change and your successor trustee needs to be able to find what you have. I had a case where the decedent had married, divorced, and remarried. And when he had a securities, he had filled them out. He opened accounts when he was married to his first wife. And so, when he never changed it. Didn't appear to be his desire. Who know who knows? He's passed. And then the real estate was split I forget the exact between his children to the first wife. I think intestate, I think it's gets split 50/50 between the heirs or something like that. Yeah, I think it's 50/50. So, whatever it was, but just imagine, I can just tell you, the second wife's child watching the ex-wife's child get all the security money, which was more even than the real estate. And then the and half the real estate just to really stick it to her when she found that out. That was a bad day. So, these are things that can be avoided by planning. If you don't, the state of California has a plan for you, but I don't think

17:00 Oh, I was just going to say that for your listeners, remember, like even if you don't do your own planning, the state has a plan for you and chances are you're not going to like it. Yeah, the people who don't have water in the fire hydrants, they have a plan for your

17:15 Wealth and your next generation. So, just know they're willing to tell you what to do with it and they're going to get their cut. Believe me, their plan gives them as much of their cut as possible, too. Right. Well, yeah, mostly cuz assets get lost. It's not like the government like there's no law that says the government gets, you know, a certain percentage, but there is a law that dictates how much the attorneys are paid. In California, the attorney's fees in a probate, the minimum is all set by statute and it's a function of the fair market value. You can Google California probate calculator and put in the you know, the number for your fair what you think your fair market value of your estate is, you'll see. And the executor or the administrator gets paid the very same. And then there's the bond fees, which are crazy high, publication fees. Just to file a petition in court right now is about $500. So, Well, the other thing I tell people is, you know, you can have a I think the numbers work out a million-dollar estate, which is I mean, we have a attorney on my street that's $1.9 million. So, it's not like it's like you're wealthy at a million dollars. But whatever, it's a nice amount of money. But would be $23,000 of attorney's fees by maximum by statute. Potentially, the administrator would also take that.

18:35 Let's say three or four thousand dollars of other fees. So, you're in there for maybe $27 to $50,000. But the house, if it's worth a million, if you have a $$700,000 mortgage, you only have $300,000 of equity. The state The fees aren't adjusted by the value to the state. It's the gross value of the assets in the state. And so, you can end up where the fees end up being more than 10% of the ending assets. Oh, absolutely. And I've had those cases and of course, as a real estate agent, they come out looking at how much you're making. I had nothing to do with all of that. I'm just selling the house. That's what Yeah, we got to pay the other agent, too. So, it's So, these are things that you can limit them, obviously, if you plan properly, but if you don't plan, there are a lot of people with their hands out who are going to get paid in the process. What do they say? Failure to plan is planning to fail. I think that was Benjamin Franklin actually said that. So, one of the key things that I know that you feel strongly about is planning for families, the title of your website. You have a picture of two appears to be husband and wife with two lovely kids. I'm partial to that. I have a my daughter has just given us her third grandson. So, we have three kids in their family. You know, lovely picture and all that. So, what does preparing for families planning look like from an attorney point of view?

19:53 First and foremost, I think more than protecting assets is keeping our minor children out of the hands of child protective services or police custody for even a moment. And so, I do with my in all of my packages where there's minor children, like the client doesn't have a choice. It's just included. We are naming short-term guardians, like people who could if there's think date night, drunk driver coma. The parents are still living. They're in a coma, but they're in a coma. So, the will doesn't come into play because the will only comes into play when there's been a death. And traditionally, people are only naming guardians in the will, but that leaves you naked if there's an incapacity. So, I'm naming short-term guardians so that they're coming and leaving. The babysitter's got a list of like five, six people they can just call, and whoever they get on the first phone first, that person rushes over and has the documents in place showing that they are, you know, that the parents have nominated them to take care of their children. And that gives time for the long-term guardian to get here. Maybe they have to fly in from out of state. And the parents are nominating who they would want to serve as their child's guardian if the, you know, we had to go to the court process and have guardians named.

21:27 And almost as maybe as importantly, if a client has family members who they would never want raising their children, we'll do a confidential exclusion of guardian. And I hold on to that. It never needs to see the light of day unless the person excluded, you know, first there's a death or, you know, long-term incapacity where we need guardians, and then the person that is being excluded actually files a petition for guardianship. I'm all about keeping families out of conflict. And so, all the planning really helps like keeping families out of probate. But then, this guardian issue, I like why would I have the client publicize to their family members that, "Oh, we don't want this person." Like, if it's never going to be an issue, right? So, we've got the documentation tells the court that the parents would not want this person raising their child. Wow. I remember I was in court in the fourth floor research room in LA County where a family came in and they sat with me and asked me questions. Their son, they're from Japan, and their son had come to America and was in an automobile accident and was in a coma. It had been months. And they cuz they had to file a, I guess, a conservatorship

22:50 Or guardianship. He was an adult child, so Conservatorship. Imagine having to file and go through that process while your child is in a coma. Like, you know, it's just, you know, unspeakable pain and to have a child in that situation, let alone who's giving the medical advance the medical decisions and whatever other decisions have to be made. And so, it's just definitely I think, you know, we can't plan for everything, but we should plan for what we can plan for and do the best we can. Right. Can I bring up one point? So many people don't think to do a planning until they're in their 70s, 60s, you know, 80s. But to your point, if that young is once children reach the age of 18, they really need to be doing health care directives and financial powers of attorney. Yes. So, the you know, hopefully they've good relationship with their parent. If not, another person who can make decisions for them if they can't do so for themselves. Otherwise, you're stuck going to get that conservatorship. Like the parents the family you just described, I suspect that there was no health care directive and decisions needed to be made. And the parents needed access to the their son's medical records and be able to talk to the doctors. And there's very likely no HIPAA release. And so, now they're stuck going to get And it's taking takes so much time. And meanwhile, like decisions need to be made quickly. You don't have time to go to court. While you're while you're overseeing your child who's in a coma. I mean, you have you have that component to the whole thing. Like, it'd be bad enough if you're just doing this with a, you know, glass of water, but if it's your child, I mean, I just my heart just broke, you know, with these fam and there you could see the pain.

24:38 And it gone on for months. They were going to court and this hearing and delayed and the form and the paperwork and you know, and then some attorney took it over and he didn't know what he was doing. The whole thing was a mess. Okay. So, we've covered not even a scratch the surface of the first part. We're just getting things in the plan. I obviously, I can tell you love this topic and that's why you talk about it and educate people and I love it as well. Your second point, going back to that to that all-time great answer you gave me when we started, the three steps is getting the plan update the plan. So, talk a little bit about somebody comes to you and you guys write the perfect plan. About how long does it take for that plan has a gaping hole that they really need to call you? And what do you do to help them keep it up to date? Yeah, it I'm sorry to say this cuz this is the classic lawyer answer and I know it's frustrating, but it really depends. Somebody who did their plan 10, 15 years ago, it was very common for lawyers to use a trust structure where it was mandatory that the estate split into two. And because the estate tax exemption was really low. And with this very traditionally used trust structure back then, you ended up losing the second step up in basis, which we're so fortunate to have here with our community property and just the way the step up laws work.

26:00 So, people who did trust 10, 15 years ago with this trust structure, they really need to update it because they're losing the second the second step up in basis. And you know, you see what our how our real estate appreciates. That could be a huge tax hit. Another instance of when people need to update is often people when they're having their first child, they'll do their estate planning. And they're naming guardians. And sometimes the often it's grandma, right? And grandma might live in Massachusetts. And that's fine at that if it if something happens to the parents, it's fine for the child to be if the child is really young, it's fine for the child to be uprooted and have to move to Massachusetts. But as the child grows, like if they're in high school and both parents have died, first of all, grandma's now like 15, 16 years older, which is significant for the grandma. And the more things change, the more we want to keep them the same, right? For the child. So, we don't want to uproot the child. So, grandma in Massachusetts is no longer the right choice for a guardian. You know, we want to keep the kid in his or her school with his community and any, you know, religious organizations and that sort of thing.

27:28 And then, also as you know, grandchildren arrive on the scene, you may want to make gifts to the grandchildren. We have to keep an eye on your assets. If your assets are growing, we there's things we can do. You know, we depending on what the estate tax exemption is, we want to, you know, minimize that tax. So, and then, more so just keeping the plan up to date to me also includes making sure the assets are in the trust. Like, it's common to open up new accounts over time and you may forget that you've, you know, oh, I got a title in it. Who thinks of that, right? Like, they're busy getting the account. Oh, maybe they're starting a new business and they're just going gung-ho. Oh, there's so much to do. And we have to think about they don't think. And so, that's why they come to they should be coming to their lawyer, you know, period every I meet with my clients at least every 3 years. I catch a lot of times we're not having to change anything. It's just a checkup and like, okay, all is good. Or I'll catch, oh, you refinanced your home and your lender made you take it out and, you know, you're allowed to put it right back in, but nobody's reminding you. And so, I'm catching that kind of thing, to making sure it gets back into it in the trust.

28:57 So again, the first pillar we talked about it in detail about getting things in the plan. Second, obviously, has to be updated and that, as you said, can be either, you know, your life changes or, you know, regulations change, laws change. You know, we're looking perhaps next year with this new account perhaps for children to find money for kids and our grandkids might change next year. So, it's certainly worth looking into ways to maximize these opportunities. And the third is communicate. I think this is the one where, you know, when attorneys look at getting into law, they tend to focus on their strength being, you know, the ability to learn and make arguments and file papers and read documents carefully. Those are very important skills. But the one that is important to the customer is how you communicate with them. Now, sometimes attorneys have staff members that are more of the soft skills and sometimes it's the attorney who is the complete package who has to have the soft skills and the technical skills. How do you follow up on that and what's your goal in having effective communication with your clients? Yeah, it's you know attorneys like we have hard jobs and we are busy and there's a lot of balls to keep in the air and I just think as a good business practice like the simple question that the assistant can answer right away, great. Like answer that question. If they if they need a copy of one of their documents, the assistant can get that to the client right away. If it's more of a legal or technical issue, then we got to book time on the lawyer's calendar and address the question that way. So, I think you know, it would be not a good use of the lawyer's time to be you know, confirming the time of the signing meeting. Like that's a good job, you know, a good task for the assistant to do. But for explaining legal concepts like nobody in the office

31:00 Other than the lawyers should be doing that. Yeah, and that's and how the attorney does it though, it might be webinar video-based Right. Right.

31:12 Yourself, combination of all those things. I know you do presentations in person. That's where how we met you. You also do some online things. So, you know, I guess it's a combination of making sure customer with a question has a has access to the right answer. Right. Yeah, exactly. Yep. Yeah. And that's the hard part I think for so many attorneys is to that struggle between I guess it's combining the soft skills with the technical skills and I think that I would say to customers, you know, you need to find the right estate planner for you and that can I can have a lot of faith in somebody's technical ability and knowledge and I might get along with them, but that's me and I have a personality, but I don't have you know, your personality speaking to the prospect. And so, you have to make sure there's somebody that they're comfortable with and willing to make sure things that they might you know, gee, if you walk in the door and I'm tying my tie, oh, everything's great in my life and in reality, you know, my marriage falls apart the next week. Well, that's a whole different estate plan, right? So, I think it's one of those things you might not be comfortable up front talking about that you have to be realistic on where you are with your life and where the prospects and all how long how well do you get along with your in-laws and your siblings and those things. Yeah, you really need to be forthcoming with your lawyer so your lawyer can put together the right plan for you. Right. Yeah, there's the right plan for you and then all the others.

32:31 Right. One you should worry about is the right plan for you. I think that's the and I guess the people often call me about, you know, do I have a you know, great estate plan attorney? Well, I do, but the question is who's the best for you? And they might not be great. They might be average, but really good at what you need them to do and that's really the key is getting the customer their solution. That's why I really you know, just really impressed I think with your commitment and I think sometimes you know, I maybe because I see the effect of mistakes and sloppiness, I see that when the attorney doesn't get the estate funded, when they're not detailed on the funding I see the mess that gets created at the end and I'm sensitive to that. Sometimes customers don't appreciate the importance of somebody being very controlling and having strict procedures, but that's to you know, create consistency. I think it's really important in the business. Right. Well, often, you know, the client themselves is not going to see that when the plan fails because they're likely That too. That too. Yeah, oh, there's that. Your customer's happy, but they're dead. Right. Well, the loved ones the loved ones right, exactly. The loved ones are left holding the bag. So, but I think when you're looking to hire a lawyer, actually I have materials on my website for download about, you know, how to hire an estate planning lawyer.

33:53 And you know, asking about the help that the lawyer gives in actually getting the assets into the trust is really important. Yeah, I personally I think and again, that's just cuz I see the mess created when it's not done right. You have all kinds of material here on your website. That to me is the critical link. If you if it just separates the serious professionals from the kind of the business people who are using this service as their niche and so, I really appreciate you going to detail with this and for and those watching, I hope you appreciate as well. These are the questions to ask I think and these are the details that have to make sense. I you know, I know I've kept you here a little bit longer than we talked about. Debbie Babb Law, the website is dbabblaw.com and also I'll put up on the screen your contact information. And I noticed on your website you have schedule online so somebody who wants to talk to you can either schedule subscribe to the newsletter, look around, find resources, but actually can schedule I guess an intake phone call and then they if they if it meets certain parameters, then they'll get a chance to talk to you and see if you're a right fit for them as far as your estate plan. Is that kind of how you do it?

35:01 Ask. Yep, you've got it. Fantastic. Really appreciate your time today Debbie and thank you for you know, the like I said, we met you through a event you did. One of my good friends and actually vendor client went there and was just really impressed and said you got to talk to this lady and we've talked a few times and here we are today. So, thank you so much for sharing with our with my platform the importance of planning ahead and the keys to look for to be effective with that. Thanks so much. Oh, truly my pleasure and I do these events to the public cuz it is so important to educate. So, we always advertise our events through our newsletter. So, it's pretty easy to subscribe and keep updated. Great. Subscribe to newsletter on her website. Deb, thanks so much. Appreciate it. Thank you. So fun. Okay, thanks Bill. And for those of you this was Estate Planning Weekly. We get together every week with estate planning attorneys, vendors to help us be more effective with our business or if you're a client, help you be more effective in keeping your wealth. If I can help at all at Bill Gross Probate on all social media, please like and subscribe this if appropriate. Send me questions if you have any. If you're an estate planning attorney you'd like to be interviewed on this, send me a request as well. Love to help and in either way, as always, make today your best day ever. Thanks so much.