Why you need an Estate Planning Session:

While no one wants to think about death, incapacity, or disability, establishing a solid estate plan is one of the most important steps you can take to protect yourself, your finances, and your loved ones. 

 

Many people have the misconception that estate planning is only for the elderly and rich.  Estate planning is a plan for life. Thus, it is something that we all should do, regardless of our age or financial status.  Having the right estate plan in place can help ensure that your loved ones are well provided for, your minor children are cared for by a person you choose, and your legacy and values will continue to live on.  Estate planning also helps to ensure your assets are protected and your affairs are handled properly if you ever become incapacitated and unable to make medical or financial decisions for yourself. 

 

Schedule an Estate Planning Session with our Memphis estate planning attorney today, so that you can gain peace of mind knowing that you and your loved ones will be protected in the event of your death or disability.  We offer affordable flat fee Estate Planning Packages and flexible payment plans to fit almost any budget.

 

What happens during the Estate Planning Session:

During your estate planning session, you will spend up to one hour with our Tennessee estate planning attorney to determine your estate planning needs and goals. Our estate planning attorney will assist you with finding out what the people you love would have to deal with if you were to become incapacitated or pass so that you can decide if the current state of your affairs is okay with you.  If you are not okay with the current state of your affairs, then our attorney will infom you of the estate planning options that you can implement to ensure you and your loved ones are protected.  If you don't already have your financial house in order, you will after your Estate Planning Session. Your Estate Planning Session may be in person at our office, by phone, or by video conference. Our office is located in Memphis, but we serve all of Tennessee.  The cost of the Estate Planning Session is $100, if you purchase one of our estate planning services, the cost of the planning session is credited to the cost of your estate planning service.  This will make the planning session free in effect.

 

Get the most out of your Planning Session

We want the time you spend with our attorney to be meaningful and helpful.  That is why when you schedule an Estate Planning Session, our attorney will send you an email informing you how to prepare for your Estate Planning Session.  The email will also contain a link to our Estate Planning Intake Form for you to complete prior to your Estate Planning Session. We ask that you complete our intake form before your Estate Planning Session and provide it to our attorney at the time of your scheduled Planning Session. Completing our estate planning intake form will help you to get clear understanding about what you own and what you have to think about when it comes to planning for the well-being and care of your loved ones.

 

By completing the intake form before your Estate Planning Session it allows our attorney to use the time that would otherwise be spent filling out paperwork to answer your questions and provide you with helpful estate planning advice and information. In addition, completing the intake form allows our attorney to provide you with a legal game plan catered to meet your unique needs and goals.

 

Make your Planning Session FREE!

If you decide to retain our Memphis estate planning attorney, your Estate Planning Session fee will be credited towards the overall cost of your legal services, making it free in effect! 

 

Meet with our attorney by phone, video conference, or in office

Our Estate Planning Sessions can be completed in our office, by phone, or by video conference.  You may choose the method that is most convenient for you. You can expect your Estate Planning Session to last from 45 minutes to one hour.

 

What you can expect during your Estate Planning Session

During your Estate Planning Session, our Memphis estate planning attorney will:

• Review your intake forms and other relevant documents to gain a thorough understanding of your particular situation;

• Review any estate planning documents that you may have drafted on your own or received from a document preparation company or other attorney;

• Talk with you to learn more about your situation, your concerns, and your estate planning goals;

• Inform you what would happen to you and your loved one if you were to pass or become disabled with the current state of your affairs;

• Discuss what you would like to happen if you and your loved ones if you were to pass or become disabled;

• Inform you of various estate planning options you may benefit from using;

• Design an estate plan tailored to your unique situation, goals, and budget;

• Provide you with an estimated cost of your legal services; and

• Discuss your payment options and our payment plans.

 

In addition to providing you with legal information, another objective of our Estate Planning Session is to determine whether or not you and our firm are a good fit for each other.  If we decide we are not a good fit, then we will refund you your Planning Session fee.  There are many reasons why we might decide not to represent you, but if we make such a decision, it should never be taken personally. 

 

If we decide you are a good fit for us and you feel likewise, we will discuss your payment options, decide on a payment plan, and execute an Attorney-Client Agreement.  If you would like to take advantage of one of our affordable payment plans, you will need to provide our office a government issued photo identification, your last two check stubs (or other proof of income), a copy of your last bank statement, and a debit or credit card during your Planning Session. If you decide to use a payment plan, the payments for your attorney fees will be automatically drafted from the debit or credit card you provide in accordance with the payment plan you choose. 

 

 Please note that your Planning Session is confidential and subject to the attorney-client privilege, even if you do not retain our Memphis attorney.

 

Why the Walls Law Firm does not offer free consultations

At the Walls Law Firm, we do not offer free consultations.  However, we do offer low cost Planning Sessions that have the potential to be free. We currently charge $100.00 for our Planning Sessions lasting up to one-hour with potential new clients.  If you decide to retain our law firm, the cost of the Planning Session will be credited to the overall cost of your attorney fee, making the Planning Session free in effect!

 

Often people who find us through our website call and ask if we offer free initial consultations.  A small enough subset have taken offence at our refusal to do so that we feel it is necessary to explain the six reasons why we don’t offer free consultations.

 

Reason #1: We aren’t interested in “making a sell”.

Generally, when you make an appointment for a free consultation with an attorney, the free consultation is simply used as a sales mechanism to get clients in the door and so that the attorney can sell the potential client the law firm’s services.  Many attorneys who provide free consultations will not discuss the specific circumstances of your case in detail, provide you with legal advice, nor provide you with a legal game plan during the free consultation. Typically, free consultations are simply meant to be a brief conversation with the sole purpose of convincing the client he or she should move forward with the law firm and the costs of doing so. Thus, most attorneys who provide free consultations will not discuss the nuances of the facts of your case or explain how the law applies to your particular circumstances until you sign a contract for their legal services and pay their required attorney fees.  Hence, it is not surprising that most potential clients leave free consultations with more questions than answers.

 

Attorney Nakeshia Walls founded the Walls Law Firm because she wanted to change the way people are dealt with when they are dealing with a legal matter.  At the Walls Law Firm, we value people over profits.  That is why we are dedicated to using the law as a helping and healing profession.  When you meet with us for a Planning Session, we aren’t interested in “making a sell” or creating issues to increase our attorney fees.  Instead our goal during the Planning Session is to provide you with helpful legal information and a strategic plan to resolve your concerns and achieve your desired goals.

 

During the Planning Session, you can expect the opportunity to have an in-depth discussion of the details of your legal matter followed by a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of your case.  You can also expect our attorney to provide you with legal advice and detailed information on how the law affects your particular situation.  Our attorney will review legal documents, discuss the various options that are available to resolve your legal matter, and make suggestions as to which options might be worth exploring further.   In addition, our attorney will provide you with a legal game plan to save you time, money, and stress in the long run.  If legal representation is necessary, our attorney will also quote a firm flat fee or retainer for our law firm to begin representation and provide you with protection from us later representing the opposing party on the same matter. Our attorney will also discuss your payment options and inform you about our payment plans.

 

 When you leave your Planning Session, you will leave well informed about how the law affects your particular situation.  In addition, you will also have a detailed legal game plan to help you efficiently resolve your legal matter in order to save you money, time, and stress in the long run. 

 

Reason #2: A lawyer’s time and advice is his/her service.

As Abraham Lincoln noted, “a lawyer’s time and advice is his stock in trade.”  As a law firm dedicated to using the law as a helping and healing profession, our greatest service to our clients are our time, advice, experience, and abilities.  Time is the most finite of these qualities and our advice is the most valuable. Our attorney already does a significant amount of pro bono work, such as guardian ad litem work, participating in free legal clinics, and organizing, moderating and speaking at family law and estate planning seminars.  Our attorney could easily provide two or more free consultations a day, which would mean a quarter of our attorney’s work day would be spent providing free consultations.  Our law practice is too busy for us to provide free consultations to everyone who wants one and it isn’t fair for us to offer free consultations to some prospective clients but not others.

 

Reason #3: Free consultations can result in attorney’s being conflicted out of a case.

Once one party consults with an attorney, that party may attempt to conflict the attorney out of the case and prevent the opposing party from hiring the attorney, even if they did not hire the attorney themselves.  Sometimes people will consult with attorneys for the sole purpose of conflicting the attorneys out of the case in order to prevent the opposing party from being able to hire the attorneys.  This practice is greatly frowned upon.  Requiring people to pay an affordable Planning Session fee decreases the chances of people consulting with our attorney for the sole purpose of precluding our attorney from representing the opposing party in their case.

 

Reason #4: We offer a lot of free legal information on our website.

At the Walls Law Firm, we want you to be informed.  That is why we provide tons of helpful legal information on our website for free.  Our website’s content is the product of years of family law and estate planning experience and thousands of hours of research and writing.  We offer it both to market our legal services and as a public resource.  People seeking free information on Tennessee divorce, family law, and estate planning are welcome to use it.  However, people expecting more detailed advice from us should be willing to pay for it.  Just think, you wouldn’t be too fond of your employer requesting you to go to work for free.  By charging a minimal fee for our Planning Sessions, we are simply requesting the same respect as you…to be paid for our work.

 

Reason #5: We credit what you pay for your Planning Session to your overall attorney fees, making the Planning Session free in effect!

If you decide to retain us, we will credit whatever you paid for your Planning Session to the overall cost of your legal services, making the Planning  Session free in effect!

 

Reason #6: Charging for our Planning Sessions allows us to keep our attorney fees affordable and offer flexible payment plans by saving on collection costs.

We are able to offer affordable flat fees and flexible payment plans by reducing the need for collecting delinquent accounts.  Our Planning Session fee is offered at a reduced hourly fee in order to make obtaining the legal services you need more affordable.  In addition, if you decide to retain us, we will also credit the fee you paid for the Planning Session towards the total cost of your legal services.  This makes the Planning Session free in effect!

 

By charging a Planning Session fee, we are able to weed out the clients who can’t or are unwilling to pay us for our services.  This in turn allows us to save on the cost of collecting delinquent accounts.  This savings allows us to keep our attorney fees affordable and offer flexible payment plans (with payments as low as $50 biweekly) to clients who are able and willing to pay us for our services. From our experience, a potential client who cannot afford the Planning Session fee generally cannot afford to pay for our legal services.  In addition, a potential client who is unwilling to pay the Planning Session fee is usually unwilling to pay for an attorney’s services. Our flexible payment plans typically make affording an attorney within most people’s budget.  If you are truly unable to afford an attorney, you should consider contacting Memphis Area Legal Services at (901) 523-8822.  Memphis Area Legal Services offers free legal assistance in civil matters to low income and elderly persons.