Running your own legal practice can be daunting for any attorney, but it can be especially difficult for new and transitioning estate planners. This may be due, in part, to the knowledge gap between what attorneys learn in law school and what they need to know in order to run a law practice. To fill these gaps, it’s important to educate oneself on what the current best practices are (so they can be implemented), as well as what the common pitfalls are (so they can be avoided). Here are some basic tips for fresh-faced law graduates or transitioning attorneys looking to build their own estate planning practice.

Thanks to the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), same-sex marriages now enjoy the same legal rights as heterosexual marriages in the United States. However, as same-sex couples still face unique estate planning issues, attorneys should be wary of assuming they can plan for them in the same way as their heterosexual counterparts.

Deciding between joint and separate trusts for married couples has been a conundrum within the estate planning community for a long time. While many attorneys swear by one trust over the other, there are many factors—such as, the state in which the couple resides, the total of their marital estate, and the couple’s relationship itself—that contribute to the decision of which trust is more suitable.

Historically, joint trusts have been popular among married couples due to their cheaper start-up costs, ease of management, and the fact that a joint trust reflects the traditional view of a marital estate as a singular unit. However, separate trusts, have some great (and often superior) benefits for a married couple in regards to asset protection, management flexibility, and cost savings after the death of the first spouse.

To aid in this decision process, we've compared the strength and weaknesses of each trust type for various situations. The check mark signifies which trust is the better option for that category.