Estate planning often feels too small a term for the beauty, blessing, and bounty of our human life. While legal documents are necessary and important, they represent just one part of the legacy you’ll leave behind. At Colman Knight, we prefer the term “Life Legacy” because it encompasses a broader, more meaningful perspective: each day you are living your legacy with every choice you make.
Understanding Life Legacy Planning
Life Legacy planning addresses both the practical importance of legal documentation and the deeper awareness that our lives are precious and temporary. It acknowledges that the legacy you imagine after your passing can align with conscious choices you make today. This approach integrates your financial, legal, and personal aspirations into a cohesive plan that reflects your unique values and relationships.
The Living Legacy: A Different Perspective
Consider this fundamental question: How does the legacy you imagine after your passing align with your actions and choices today? This reflection points us toward a profound truth—you are living your legacy right now, with every breath, every interaction, and every decision.
Life Legacy Planning invites you to:
- Connect your current choices with your future impact
- Align your legal and financial decisions with your deepest values
- Create meaning beyond mere asset distribution
- Build a bridge between your life today and your lasting influence
- Recognize that your wealthy life is much more than money
Understanding the Practical Foundation
While Life Legacy Planning transcends traditional estate planning, it absolutely includes the essential practical elements that protect and care for you and your loved ones. A comprehensive Life Legacy Plan provides:
Essential Protection
- Clear direction for asset distribution
- Minimized tax burden and legal complications
- Protected interests for beneficiaries
- Structured decision-making during incapacity
- Preserved family harmony during difficult transitions
Estate Documents
A complete Life Legacy Plan includes carefully crafted documents that form your foundation. Named below are the common documents in most estate plans.:
- Health Care Directives Your voice in medical decisions, encompassing both:
- Health Care Proxy (in Massachusetts) or Healthcare Power of Attorney
- Living Will expressing your end-of-life wishes
- General Durable Power of Attorney Ensuring trusted oversight of legal and financial matters when needed
- Trust Agreements Creating protected “buckets” that hold and distribute assets according to your wishes
- Will Providing clear instructions and naming trusted executors
- Ethical Will Perhaps the most profound document—your letter to loved ones sharing your values, wisdom, and blessings
Beyond Documents: The Heart of Life Legacy Planning
What makes our approach unique is our understanding that these legal documents are simply containers—vital ones, but containers nonetheless—for something far more precious: your life’s meaning and impact.
The Deeper Dimensions
Life Legacy Planning invites you to consider:
- The wisdom you want to share
- The values you hope to transmit
- The relationships you wish to nurture
- The impact you want to have
- The stories you want to preserve
Creating Living Connections
Your Life Legacy Plan becomes a bridge between:
- Your present choices and future impact
- Your financial decisions and personal values
- Your practical planning and emotional legacy
- Your life story and your family’s future
The Colman Knight Life Legacy Review Process
Our active approach to Life Legacy Planning recognizes that both lives and circumstances evolve continuously. Our process includes:
Regular Reviews
- Comprehensive document review every three years
- Updates reflecting life changes and new circumstances
- Alignment checks between documents and current wishes
- Opportunities for deeper reflection and refinement
Practical Support
- Creating clear summaries of asset distribution pathways
- Verifying document accuracy and intention alignment
- Facilitating family discussions when helpful
- Ensuring all aspects of your plan work together seamlessly
Deeper Dimensions of (or Enduring) Life Legacy
- Wisdom to share
- Values to transmit
- Impact to have
- Stories to preserve
- Relationships to nurture
Taking Action: First Steps in Life Legacy Planning
Whether you’re just beginning to think about your legacy or seeking to deepen your existing plan, here are essential first steps:
- Gather Your Current Documents Collect all existing estate planning documents, beneficiary designations, and related materials.
- Reflect on Your Values Consider what matters most to you and how you want to express that through your legacy.
- Consider Your Impact Think about the influence you want to have on future generations and your community.
- Start the Conversation Begin discussing your thoughts with family members and trusted advisors.
Living Your Legacy Today
Remember, your legacy isn’t waiting to begin—it’s unfolding right now. Every choice you make, every value you express, every relationship you nurture contributes to the legacy you’re creating. Our role is to help ensure that your financial and estate planning aligns with and supports the legacy you’re already living.
Through Life Legacy Planning, we help you create harmony between:
- Your current choices and future impact
- Your practical planning and personal values
- Your financial decisions and family relationships
- Your life today and your lasting influence
- Your written expressions through Last Love Letters
Begin Your Life Legacy Journey
Ready to explore a more meaningful approach to estate planning? Let’s discuss how Life Legacy Planning can help you create alignment between your current life and lasting impact.
