Providing Value to Austinites by combining Estate Planning with Wealth Planning and Retirement Income Planning

Bringing Wealth Planning to the 99%

I am excited to bring over 15 years of experience in estate planning, trust and estate administration, and wealth management to Austin. The law firm, the Law Office of Zachary D Kamykowski, PLLC, offers clients a unique and comprehensive wealth management service. Although the law firm is new, I have extensive experience handling the estates and trusts of the ultra-wealthy: the 1%. 

With this experience, I can provide a service to the 99% based on the lessons I have learned about how the 1% manage, grow, protect and transfer their wealth.

I have the experience to provide clients a wealth plan that combines estate planning, financial planning, and retirement planning. These are complex matters. Often, clients go to professionals for help and receive piecemeal plans. The client walks away with a plan based on the professional’s area of expertise. Or perhaps, the plan’s recommendations match the professional’s compensation structure more than the client’s best interests.

At the Law Office of Zachary D Kamykowski, PLLC, you receive a plan that serves your best interests exclusively. You also receive a comprehensive plan. It protects your current wealth. It provides you with a roadmap to create and preserve future wealth. It helps you understand how much you need to save for a comfortable retirement. With the plan, you will know how you will meet your retirement income needs.

For Whom Does Your Financial Advisor Work?

If you have a financial advisor, you may have a financial plan. However, is that plan focused on getting you wealthy or your advisor? 

The oft-referenced notion is that why does my financial advisor have a yacht, and I don’t?

The financial plan that you have probably exists in a vacuum. Does that financial plan incorporate your estate plan? Do you understand how you will meet your retirement income needs? What are the assumptions underlying the financial plan?

Your financial advisor is not an estate planning attorney, so they cannot prepare legal documents for you. Perhaps your financial advisor has some mutual relationship with a particular estate attorney whereby they pass clients to each other. A coordinated financial and estate plan is what I’m recommending. But, such a relationship may not serve your best interest. Although one or the other may be competent, they may push you to an advisor based more on their ability to provide clients to your estate attorney or vice versa, rather than their competence or suitability for your particular circumstances.

So, even if you have a fee-only fiduciary financial advisor, they may recommend you to a subpar estate attorney merely because that estate attorney provides the financial advisor with many clients. 

In my experience at a large financial institution, there were situations where the relationship managers recommended to clients, attorneys, or accountants who were more expensive and less qualified than alternatives. However, because the relationship manager depended on these specific attorneys and accountants for client referrals, they put the particular client’s interests aside.

Finding wealth management professionals can be daunting. Unwinding their interests is not for the faint of heart. 

By offering Austin clients a comprehensive wealth plan that includes both a financial plan and estate planning, the Law Office of Zachary D Kamykowski, PLLC, eliminates the risk that your plan arises from backroom deals rather than serving your best interests. 

A Will is not an Estate Plan

You might realize that you need a Will. You find an estate planning lawyer at a law office in Austin, Texas, offering a Will for a few hundred dollars. Fine. So, you get a Will. But, what do you get for a few hundred dollars? You may think that you are getting peace of mind, but you may only be getting a roll of the dice. 

A Will is not an Estate Plan. You get a Will to save your family stress. However, with only a Will, you have defined the transfer of probably only a tiny percentage of your total assets without a comprehensive Estate Plan.

In my years of estate and trust administration at a large bank in Austin, Tx, I found that families endured much unnecessary stress and financial cost if the decedent’s attorney provided them with a will disconnected from a comprehensive Wealth Plan. There were instances where Wills or living trusts, made irrevocable by death, failed to meet the presumed asset protection goals of the decedent as they intended. 

Estate planning and probate avoidance require an attorney dedicated to the practice area. Moreover, to ensure a smooth estate and trust administration, you need an estate planning attorney dedicated to their clients. If you go to an attorney whose business model depends on volume - offering cheap Wills to many clients - you have walked away with a Will. You may have checked an “adulting” box. But, you have not ensured that your assets will transfer smoothly.

An effective Estate Plan is more than a Will. It is more than a medical power of attorney and financial power of attorney. Instead, it is built and maintained within your changing financial position and desires - coordinated with your current financial plan, retirement plan, and legacy planning goals.

At the Law Office of Zachary D Kamykowski, PLLC, we build together with our clients an effective Wealth Plan that considers your current financial circumstances, where you are aiming, and how you want to transfer your wealth according to your values.