The Death Readiness Podcast

09/16/2026

Life got busy.

I’m running a solo law firm. We’re wrangling four dogs, including foster puppy Joxer. And we’re getting back into the rhythm of school, work, activities, and everything else that seems to arrive with September.

Some things have been… neglected.

Like the back left corner of my backyard.

As you can see, Joxer, our Detroit Dog Rescue foster puppy, has bravely ventured in to assess the situation.

It’s wildly overgrown.

And fixing it is not even on my to-do list right now.

Which made me think: Is this what your estate plan looks like?

Maybe you’ve been meaning to get one done for years or you have one, but you haven’t looked at it since your kids were little.

Maybe life just got busy, and estate planning kept getting pushed a little farther into the back left corner.

I get it.

At some point, both my backyard and your estate plan need to make it onto the list.

I’ll deal with mine.

And if you live in Tennessee and your estate plan has gotten a little overgrown, I can help you deal with yours.

09/14/2026

One reason people put off estate planning?

I think sometimes they just don’t know what to expect.

Do I need to know whether I need a Will or a trust?

Do I need a complete list of everything I own?

Am I supposed to know who should be my executor?

Do I need to have all of my decisions made before I meet with an attorney?

Nope. That’s why you’re hiring an estate planning attorney.

I created this infographic to show exactly what my estate planning process looks like, from our first 30-minute conversation through drafting, reviewing, signing, and making sure the plan actually works.

And on tomorrow’s episode of The Death Readiness Podcast, I’m taking you behind the scenes of the process and talking about three things you should understand before hiring an estate planning attorney:

Scope. Cost. Process.

What are you hiring the attorney to do?

What will it cost?

And what happens after you say yes?

You don’t need to show up to your first meeting knowing exactly what your estate plan should say.

Bring your life, your questions, your worries, and your goals.
The estate planning attorney can help with the legal part.

🎧 New episode of The Death Readiness Podcast tomorrow.

09/12/2026

This is how we spend Saturday mornings over here.

My husband is a software engineer, which makes him a very useful podcast editor.

Hear me out.

Before an episode of The Death Readiness Podcast makes its way to you, he edits it from the perspective of someone who doesn’t spend his days thinking about wills, trusts, probate, beneficiary designations, and powers of attorney.

If something doesn’t make sense, he tells me.

If I’ve assumed everyone knows something that only estate planning lawyers know, he definitely tells me.

The real test is whether someone who isn’t an estate planning lawyer can actually understand it.

So this morning, he’s in the backyard editing my next episode while two foster puppies sleep at his feet and another dog works on his tan.

Just another Saturday morning at The Death Readiness Podcast headquarters in Royal Oak, Michigan.

09/11/2026

Twenty-five years later, we remember.

The lives lost, the families forever changed, and the courage and humanity we witnessed in the midst of unimaginable loss.

May we continue to honor them by remembering.

September 11, 2001.

09/10/2026

I have five dogs in my house right now.

Three are mine. Two are 8-week-old foster puppies.

And this morning, the only pair of running sneakers I own disappeared.

I wore them yesterday.

Today? Gone.

I’m not making any accusations. But Joxer and Callisto are new around here, and puppies do introduce a certain amount of unpredictability into a household.

I have searched everywhere I can think of

No sneakers.

By the way, Joxer and Callisto are now officially available for adoption through Detroit Dog Rescue.

They are adorable. They are sweet. They are very good puppies.

I cannot, however, guarantee that all of your belongings will remain exactly where you left them.

If you’re looking to add a puppy to your family, please check them out.

09/09/2026

We are adorable.

We are available.

Joxer and Callisto, our two foster puppies from Detroit Dog Rescue, are officially available for adoption. ❤️

They came to us a couple of weeks ago as tiny six-week-old puppies who required a lot of middle-of-the-night trips to the backyard and a fairly significant amount of household chaos.

Since then, they’ve been growing, playing, learning, wrestling with each other, tormenting the resident dogs, and becoming very good little puppies.

And now they’re ready for the next part: finding their people.

If you’ve been thinking about adding a puppy to your family, or you know someone who has, please take a look at Joxer (gray) and Callisto (black) through Detroit Dog Rescue.

And if a puppy is definitely not in your plans, a like, comment or share might help this photo reach the person whose plans should include one.

Or two.

09/09/2026

I recently got this message from another estate planning attorney, and I think it might be my favorite compliment I’ve ever received about The Death Readiness Podcast.

Being told someone is “somewhat addicted” to my podcast is pretty great.

But what she said after that might be an even better compliment.
It was this:

The way I explain estate planning helps her explain estate planning to her clients.

Estate planning can be complicated. There are tax rules, state laws, beneficiary designations, trusts, probate procedures, and a whole lot of unfamiliar language packed into some pretty important decisions.

But the person sitting across from us shouldn’t need a law degree to understand what their own estate plan does.

That’s something I care about a lot in my practice and on the podcast.

I want people to understand not just what I recommend, but why I recommend it and what it actually means for their family.

Estate planning can be complicated.

Explaining it doesn’t have to be.

09/08/2026

If you’re divorced and your parenting plan requires you to maintain life insurance for your children, here’s something I want you to check.

Pull out three things:
1. Your parenting plan
2. Your life insurance beneficiary designation
3. Your estate planning documents

Now ask yourself: Are these three things actually telling the same story?

Because having the life insurance policy is only part of the plan.

Your parenting plan might tell you that you’re required to maintain a certain amount of life insurance for your children. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it gives you clear instructions for how to set up the beneficiary designation so the money actually gets to your children, and can be managed for them, if you die while they’re still minors.

And naming a minor child directly as the beneficiary can create its own set of problems.

That’s the issue I tackle in this week’s episode of The Death Readiness Podcast.

I actually pulled up my own life insurance company’s beneficiary designation form and worked through what would happen if I were a divorced parent trying to follow the language in Tennessee’s form parenting plan.

It turns out that something that sounds pretty simple on paper can get complicated very quickly when you’re staring at an actual beneficiary form wondering which box you’re supposed to check.

Today, I talk about:
→ Why naming a minor directly as a beneficiary can be a problem
→ What a custodian under UTMA is and when that might be useful
→ Why “trustee” and “custodian” aren’t necessarily interchangeable
→ How your Will can work together with your parenting plan and life insurance
→ And the question I think every divorced parent with a life insurance requirement should ask:

If I died tomorrow, would this money actually go where my parenting plan says it should go?

Watch the full episode here:

Your parenting plan may require you to maintain life insurance for ...

09/07/2026

Labor Day seems like an appropriate time to articulate my five-year plan.

A few years ago, I’m not sure I would have predicted that work would look like building my own law practice, talking about death into a microphone every week, spending summers working from my dad’s house in the Adirondacks, and regularly having to count the dogs in my house to remember how many currently live here.

But here we are.

I’ve spent a lot of my career thinking about what I was supposed to do next.

These days, I’m much more interested in building work, and a life, that actually feels like mine.

So on this Labor Day, I’m feeling pretty grateful for work I care about, the freedom to do it in a way that fits my life, and the fact that my commute occasionally involves stepping over a foster puppy.

The five-year plan may need some adjustments.

Mostly to accommodate more dogs.