As a wealthy individual, you’ve worked hard to earn your money and secure a thriving future for you and your loved ones. Sadly, a frivolous lawsuit can snatch those assets away in a matter of days.
If this possibility concerns you, you’re not alone. Across the world, asset protection attorneys are fighting to defend people’s hard-earned wealth from lawsuits, creditors, and other threats. These legal specialists will set up a wealth defense strategy to keep your money safe no matter what threats come your way.
Here, we’ll explain what asset protection trust attorneys are and how they work to keep your wealth secure.
Asset Protection Planning
To understand what an asset protection attorney does, you need to understand what asset protection planning is.
Asset protection planning is a type of financial planning centered around guarding your wealth from various threats, such as lawsuits and creditors. It can even keep your money secure if you lose a lawsuit. This is accomplished by using tools like limited liability companies (LLC) and asset protection trusts (APTs) to create legal separation between the trust creator and their assets.
Effective wealth defense strategies are assembled by professionals, such as asset protection attorneys, with experience deploying tools and structures that safeguard your wealth.
Asset Protection Attorney Definition
An asset protection attorney is a lawyer who helps clients find legal ways to protect their assets when lawsuits, divorce, creditor claims, or other liabilities arise. They can go by many names, from broad to specific – estate lawyer, trust attorney, asset protection trust attorney, and more. These attorneys also give legal advice to help you make the most of your asset protection plan, while keeping that plan within the bounds of the law.
Why You Need an Asset Protection Attorney
Maybe you’ve already done some research into creating your asset protection plan. You may even believe you can set one up by yourself. However, that’s not the best idea. Strategies to protect your assets need to be airtight to ensure that creditors don’t poke holes in them. Keep in mind, your opponent’s attorney is professionally trained to find and exploit weaknesses in asset protection plans. So, even a small flaw can unravel everything.
Asset protection attorneys specialize in crafting ironclad safeguards for your wealth. Enlisting their help makes structure in your wealth defense plan more effective. Most importantly, working with an attorney makes it easier to select the right tools for your plan.
Everyone needs a different asset protection strategy. Unfortunately, people who set up their own strategies often base them on one-size-fits-all plans. These plans, as you might imagine, usually have gaping holes that attorneys can use to pick apart. Ultimately, the people who set up asset protection plans without a lawyer’s help often spend a lot of time and money, only to lose all their assets in one swipe of a legal pen.
Those who work with asset protection attorneys are unlikely to meet this fate.
Methods Asset Protection Attorneys Use to Defend Your Wealth
When we defined asset protection planning, we mentioned a few common tools attorneys use to keep your money safe. Now, let’s take a closer look at those tools to see how asset protection trust attorneys utilize them to your benefit:
Corporate structures: Business entities, like LLCs and corporations, are used to separate business and personal assets. In an asset protection plan, attorneys create layered structures, where such a trust owns an LLC. This practice further compartmentalizes your assets, ensuring that a legal attack on one area doesn’t expose your entire asset pool. Attorneys also use layered structures to give clients greater control over their trust-held assets without compromising the protections offered by the trust.
Asset protection trusts: These are some of the most powerful legal tools available. Asset protection trusts are usually irrevocable, meaning the judge cannot readily force you to make changes against your will. Additionally, a good asset protection trust attorney will structure your trust to ensure you retain access to your assets. APTs can be established either domestically or in an offshore jurisdiction. In general, offshore trusts offer greater protection from creditors, as they are not bound by U.S. laws.
When to Set Up Your Asset Protection Plan
An asset protection plan should begin before a lawsuit arises. It is more difficult to block creditors and implement protective measures in the middle of a lawsuit. So, if you’re considering hiring an asset protection attorney but aren’t sure if you need one yet, do it. Getting your assets inside of a well-crafted trust today is the best way to protect them from threats in the future.
How to Prepare for Working with an Asset Protection Attorney
You likely want to get your defense strategy up and running ASAP. If that’s the case, doing a little prep work before meeting with your asset protection attorney can speed up the process. Here’s what we recommend you do before your first meeting:
Gather financial documents: Your attorney will need bank statements, asset lists, housing deeds, and other important financial documents to get an accurate picture of your situation. If you’re unsure what to bring, contact the attorney beforehand and ask what they need.
Call the attorney’s office: Chances are, you’ve already done some internet research on your attorney before scheduling your first meeting. However, it’s still a good idea to give them a call. Doing so helps you see how they communicate, treat your time, and answer your questions.
Write down your desired outcomes: Let your attorney know specifically what you wish to protect. Different assets require different protection strategies.
Identify potential legal threats: Much like you would bring a list of ailments to a new doctor, you should bring a list of potential threats to your asset protection attorney. Be as forthcoming as possible with any information about looming lawsuits, risks, and other problems that could arise. This will help your attorney craft a tailored strategy.
Determine how much time you can spend on the plan: Tell your attorney how much time you’re willing to spend working on the plan. Doing so ensures you don’t become a bottleneck in the trust establishment process.
Outline which tools you are comfortable using: Do some light research on common asset protection tools and methods, like offshore trusts, equity stripping, and LLCs, to see which ones you are comfortable using. Bring this list to your asset protection attorney, and they’ll do their best to craft a strategy that puts you at ease.
What to Expect During Your First Meeting with an Asset Protection Attorney
During your meeting, your potential asset protection attorney will work on getting to know you. This usually involves a casual conversation and a deep dive into your financial portfolio. Just make sure their communication style aligns with yours.
After handling introductions, the attorney will get down to business investigating all the items you compiled for the meeting. They may or may not come up with a full asset protection plan in the initial meeting, but you can ask them for their initial impressions. This gives you a chance to see how quickly they absorb information and create actionable plans.
When the meeting concludes, you will often conclude the meeting with a proposed strategy. Moreover, you should leave the meeting with a good sense of how well you could work with that attorney. If you feel they’re a fit, you’ll sign an agreement to bring them on as your asset protection attorney. From there, you can set up future meetings to discuss the creation of your plan to protect your assets in greater detail.
Want to Keep Your Wealth Safe? Call Asset Protection Planners
If the prospect of endlessly researching asset protection attorneys sounds less than appealing, know that Asset Protection Planners already has trustworthy attorneys who are ready to help you! Our firm has close relationships with some of the best wealth protection attorneys, and we’ve set up thousands of ironclad trusts for our clients.
Don’t waste days wading through attorney websites only to be disappointed. Fill out the form on this page to schedule your free consultation with us.
