If you have seen an estate plan before, you likely saw pages of legalese with definitions, confusing language, lists of assets, and of course specific directions for distributing assets. As important as these are, they tend to focus mainly on asset distributions, medical and legal care in light of disability, limit the person's ability to convey any explanation or message to their family of what they hold most dear in life.
This is because estate planning largely focuses on the legal strategies required to administer an estate and care for an incapacitated person. These strategies are the backbone of ensuring a person and their estate are cared for according to their beliefs and wishes, and that their family and others are not left guessing what should be done. While the legal aspect of an estate plan is key to ensuring a successful administration and is indeed the most important part as it relates to proper administration and care for an incapacitated individual, other factors important to the individual may not necessarily fall under any legal protection. These factors can nevertheless be just as important to an individual who leaves their estate behind, such as religious beliefs, life lessons, wisdom, personal statements, and principals a person wishes to pass on to their posterity. These factors can be addressed in an Ethical Will.
An Ethical Will dates back to biblical times, originating from Jewish culture and tradition. Historically, an Ethical Will was a way for a family member to pass on their wisdom and guidance to their family and children as a sort of deathbed message. Over the centuries, ethical wills evolved into more personal messages to family and posterity and recently have been borrowed and adopted by many outside of the Jewish faith.
Family members may be able to share personal messages to individual people, such as giving specific wisdom and advice to each of their children, or overall statements for their family and posterity as a whole. Some may choose to describe a pivotal moment in their life while others may share their perspective of family relationship. Whatever the message, an Ethical Will opens a window into the individual's personal feelings and motivations in life behind the asset distribution that the rest of an estate plan details.
Creating an Ethical Will is a personal choice and can be included in your own estate plan. To get started on an Ethical Will, take pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and write down what you wish to tell your loved ones and posterity. If you wish for an Ethical Will to be a part of your estate plan, give us a call and we can help you formalize it into your estate plan.
