"How much is a will?" "We need a simple will. How much is that?" "We don’t need anything complicated. Just a simple will."

In an estate planning practice, these questions and assertions are common. Our clients review their situation and determine that their life is simple, and that simple documents should suffice.

Unfortunately, life is not always simple. A good estate planner looks beyond the obvious, to search for situations that might do harm to the clients, their families, and their planning.

First, simple wills are often insufficient. If a client has minor children and leaves property to those children, a trust must be utilized. Either the clients can draft their own trust or the state will interpose its version of a trust, but a trust will hold the assets for the children. Because the state's trust gives a child his or her share at age eighteen, a process not unlike arming a missile, parents once informed generally choose to make the investment in having their attorney draft a trust, and determine when and under what conditions the child receives his or her inheritance.

If a married client couple has an estate, including life insurance proceeds, retirement plans, home and all other assets, with a value in excess of the tax-free limit (currently $1 million), a trust can be used to save thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars in estate taxes. If a client is leaving assets to or for the benefit of a disabled person or a spouse in a nursing home, a trust must be used to protect assets from the claims of creditors, including nursing homes and government benefits programs.

A living trust provides two benefits, probate avoidance and asset management. The former benefit is real, though not as significant in Maryland as in other states, as probate is an inexpensive and relatively painless procedure, though a great inconvenience to your heirs. The latter benefit is very important to those actively managing a business or facing incompetency. The living trust is the best asset management tool available.

Second, a will is only operative after the death of the testator, the person signing the will. A will does not cover withdrawal or withholding of life support, or decisions about medical care or financial management before death. If you are not able to make decisions for yourself, a will cannot provide for your needs.

To provide for life support decisions, a living will or advance care directive is needed. The directive is preferable, because the living will is only effective if you have a terminal illness or terminal injury. A directive is effective in these situations and also if you are in a persistent vegitative state (final coma) or end-stage condition (the final stages of such degenerative diseases as alzheimer's, Parkinsons, and Lou Gehrig's diseases).

A medical power of attorney is usually employed in conjunction with the advance care directive. While the directive provides guidance for end-of-life decisions regarding life support, the medical power of attorney nominates someone to make these decisions and medical decisions of a more routine nature when you do not want or are unable to make them yourself. These documents can be and often are combined.

To provide for financial management during incompetency, a financial power of attorney should be drafted. As with all of the other documents, if you do not execute it well in advance, it is too late to execute it when you need it - when you are unable to make decisions for yourself.

This writer often receives calls from children and spouses, asking for our office to draft a power of attorney for an incompetent individual. By that time, it is simply too late. The only alternative is an expensive, time-consuming, often embarrassing guardianship proceeding. The minimal investment in powers of attorney avoids this.

Once you have drafted your documents, they must be kept up-to-date. You should review them at critical points in your life - births, deaths, marriages, divorces - to be sure that they have not become obsolete.

Powers of attorney become "stale" after about two years, so they should be re-drafted and re-executed frequently. Moreover, you should communicate with your professional advisor regularly, as the laws governing your affairs might change without notice to you, invalidating or changing your documents willy-nilly. By reviewing your documents with your professional advisor and revising them as needed, you show your continuing intent that they control your affairs.