08/24/2026
Attorney Bailey explains why she loves informed clients, but not half-true internet advice delivered by someone in a blazer pointing at floating captions. Or well-intended advice from people who weren't part of designing your estate plan:
Please stop getting your estate planning advice from TikTok, YouTube, Facebook comments, your neighbor, your bank teller, and the very confident person at a dinner party who once served as personal representative for an aunt in another state.
Estate planning information is everywhere right now. Some of it is helpful. Some of it is half-helpful. Some is correct for a state you don’t live in. Some advice is technically true but not for you.
Most people giving estate planning “tips” are not trying to hurt you. They are simply looking at the issue through their own professional lens, or experience. I describe this as advisors looking at an elephant from different ends. Each may be correct, but when it comes to your estate plan, you want your advice coming from your estate attorney.
A well-meaning financial advisor may be adamant that you don’t need the trust-based estate plan I set up for you, not understanding that it has more to do with your concerns about your daughter’s alcoholism than it does with your assets.
A banker may be confusing setting up an account for your trust instead of titling your existing checking and savings accounts POD into the name of your trust.
A CPA may be focused on income tax, capital gains, or estate tax.
A realtor may be focused on transfer of real estate without understanding why you have a ladybird deed on one property and not on another in your estate plan.
A well-meaning adult child may have concerns that have nothing to do with the concerns you brought up in your consultation with me.
TikTok cannot know whether your child is in a bad marriage, why I’m telling you that it’s not time to move your homestead into your trust, and whether your beneficiary designation contradicts your will. These influencers don’t know whether your trust was actually funded, whether your daughter should be trustee over her brother, or whether adding someone to your bank account will create a gift, creditor, or family problem.
Instagram does not know that one child has borrowed money for twenty years.
YouTube doesn’t know that your children are polite at Thanksgiving but should not be left to negotiate what you meant by a “small, private service.”
A lot of online content online now is produced or assisted by artificial intelligence. No offense to AI. It can be a very useful tool. It can summarize, brainstorm, organize, and explain. It can also sound really confident while missing legal details.
How many accounts claiming to be doctors, attorneys, gurus, and therapists have real professionals behind them? Plenty of viral accounts are run by people covered in Cheeto dust pretending to be people with credentials they don’t have. They make money off of your views and clicks and couldn't care less about accuracy.
If you’re our client, our staff can answer many of your funding questions without a consultation. Please don’t change your deeds or your beneficiary designations or other titles without double checking the beneficiary or funding instructions that match your estate plan.
If your situation has changed and you need legal advice, please schedule a consultation with me.
We are not against education - and informed clients are wonderful! When my clients understand estate planning basics before we meet, we can cover a lot of ground. Just consider the quality of your sources.
There’s no substitute for qualified professionals and human conversations. Before you second guess your plan or make legal changes that affect your family, your home, your accounts, your trust, or your future probate, please talk to someone whose job is to look at the whole picture!
