Services Offered

At KA Law, I offer personalized estate planning, tailored to suit your particular situation and needs. As a boutique law firm, you will receive one-on-one counseling directly from me, Karen Ahrens. Although I have a fabulous team supporting me, I will be your point of contact from the initial zoom consultation to the signing of your estate planning documents. You will not be passed off to anyone else, you will not get lost in the shuffle, you will not have emails go unanswered. I only take on the number of clients that I can personally provide my complete attention to. I will provide you with the various plan options as well as upfront pricing for those plans, there are no hidden costs. I tailor your plan to address your particular circumstances, whether you are working with limited resources and need to get a basic plan in place to protect your family, or you are looking to minimize taxes and transactional costs for a transfer of wealth from one generation to the next. Regardless of the plan you choose, I will be here to ensure that your questions are answered, that your family is taken care of in the way that you would have wanted, and that I do so as economically as possible.

Estate Planning Options

Starting the Process

Step 1: Book your complimentary estate planning consultation here

• You will receive a brief intake form over email and you will need to complete this form prior to your estate planning session.

Step 2: Complete your intake form at least one day prior to your estate planning session

• In order to make our estate planning session as productive as possible, it is important that you complete the intake form in advance of the estate planning session.

• If you are not able to complete the intake form in advance of the deadline provided, you will be asked to reschedule your estate planning session. I will send you a reminder 3 days prior to your scheduled estate planning session. Please don’t worry if you don’t feel certain of all of the answers that you’ve provided in the form, we will be reviewing everything together and I will talk through any questions or concerns that you may have.

Step 3: Meet with me for your complimentary consultation

• We will sit down together (over Zoom) to discuss your goals for your family and what would happen if you were to become incapacitated or die with your current plan in place. If you don’t have a current plan, I will explain what would happen with the default plan that the state has in place for you.

• We will then review the various estate planning options and I will educate and empower you to decide what type of plan you would like to have. You will be provided with the cost of each of these plans up front. There are no hidden fees.

Step 4: Review & Sign Your Engagement Agreement

• After the consultation you will be sent an engagement agreement. If you decide that you would like to move forward, you can sign that document electronically and that will give off the engagement.

The Estate Planning Process

Step 1: Review & Sign Your Engagement Agreement, Book Initial Design Session & Complete Intake

• After you have signed the engagement agreement, you will be sent the booking link to schedule your initial design session, a link to a comprehensive intake form, and an invoice for the deposit (half of the fee is due upfront and the other half is due at the signing of your estate plan documents)

Step 2: Estate Planning Design Session #1 (1.5 hours)

• I will sit down with you over a 90-minute zoom session to talk through the design of your estate plan. I believe in educating and empowering my clients, I do not rush anyone through this process. I purposely break the design of your plan into 2 sessions that you have time to reflect on your decisions before we finalize the structure of your plan. After the initial design session, you will be sent a summary of your decisions and your actions items to complete in advance of the 2nd design session. In this initial design session, we will schedule Design Session #2, the Document Review Meeting, and the Signing & Funding Meeting. Each meeting is typically 2 weeks apart, with the entire process being completed in 6 weeks.

Step 3: Estate Planning Design Session #2 (1 hour)

• In Design Session #2 we will review the structure of your plan, I will answer any new questions that you may have, and we will finalize any open decisions. After this meeting you will be sent an updated summary of the design of your estate plan.

Step 4: Document Review Meeting (1 hour)

• I walk you through the drafts of your estate plan over zoom, and answer any questions that you may have. After this meeting I upload your documents to my secure portal and share them with you so that you may spend as much time as you’d like reviewing your documents. If you have any follow-up questions, we can schedule an additional meeting if needed.

Step 5: Signing & Funding Meeting (1 hour)

• The signing and funding meeting will be held approximately 6 weeks from the initial estate planning design session. If you are located in or near San Francisco, I will meet you for the signing at your home with my notary. After the signing is complete, the notary will leave and we will discuss the funding process (the process of moving the assets into your trust). If you are located outside of my signing range, I will send a notary to you for the signing and we will schedule a zoom call to discuss the funding process.

• Final payment will be due on or before the signing

Step 6: Scanning Your Estate Plan, Recording Deed(s) & Return of Your Portfolio

• After your estate plan is signed, the KA Law team will create an electronic version of your documents and the PDFs will be shared with you through the secure portal. If you are transferring real estate into your trust, the deed(s) will be recorded with the relevant counties. Your portfolio will be sent back to you within 30 days of the signing - KA Law does not retain originals.

Step 7: Periodic Estate Plan Review

• I suggest that we review the terms of your estate plan every three years or so. I offer complimentary follow-up meetings to go over the details of your plan. In that meeting we’ll discuss any life events that may have occurred since the completion of your original plan, review your asset inventory, and discuss any changes that you’d like made. If there are changes that you’d like to make, I offer flat fee pricing for amendments based on what has been requested.

More questions?

Answers to common questions can be found here

Learn more about Karen Ahrens here