Can I Get an Estate Plan with that Bugaboo?

 

Alexandra Kontos, Esq.
The "K" in RKE Law Group

Baby-making season is in full effect at RKE Law Group. Three of our key employees are expecting babies in the next five months.  Perhaps it is these close-to-home pregnancies that are causing me to notice baby bumps everywhere, whether out at restaurants, shopping, in court and ALL OVER social media. Now don’t get me wrong. I do NOT have baby fever; I am perfectly happy and content (not to mention BUSY) with my two daughters, at least for right now.

In fact, it was not that long ago that I was shopping for baby strollers myself. When I was expecting Alexa, the Bugaboo was the most popular stroller around. You could get it brand new for about a thousand bucks (Ouch!). Or you can do what I did and buy the floor sample at the Ideal Baby Store (that monster baby store in Hialeah) for less than half of the original price. Still, it was a hefty purchase for me at the time.

Today, trendy moms can purchase a stylish Stokke Crusi Stroller for $1,250 (www.albeebaby.com). According to www.financesonline.com, the luxury baby market for clothing alone is expected to grow to $10.6 billion (that’s right… BILLION!!!) in 2014 (http://financesonline.com/10-most-expensive-newborn-items-fit-for-a-royal-baby/). This particular article highlights the “Most Expensive Diaper Bag,” the Louis Vuitton Monogram Mini Lin Diaper Bag, which retails at $2,200. Crazy, right?!

Expensive strollers; elaborate baby showers with gifts galore; beautiful maternity photo shoots; and the latest new-baby trend, The Gender Reveal Party… the list goes on and on, and the dollars continue to add up. With the billions being spent in the new-baby industry, it is shocking to learn that so few parents with young children actually have an estate plan in place in the event of an unexpected death. In fact, despite the reality that a court designates who becomes a child's legal guardian if both parents die, the research indicates that only 39% of parents with minors in their households have estate planning documents, and 13% believe that their spouse and children will automatically receive the assets they have in the event of their death. (http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/08/26/what-america-thinks-about-estate-planning/)

Now, I know you may be thinking that Estate planning is only for people who have a lot of money and a lot of assets. I used to think the same thing. But that is simply not the case. It is in our generation’s best interest to be proactive and forward-looking, and get educated about the importance of planning for our family’s future. Now, I admit that the thought of planning for what will happen to your family when and if you should pass away unexpectedly is not nearly as much fun as planning a Gender Reveal Party, but, in my opinion, it absolutely should be a priority for expectant couples and for families with young children.

Say, for example, you buy a life insurance policy and designate your children as beneficiaries of the policy. If you die while the kids are still minors, and you have not named a guardian or another representative to administer the proceeds on behalf of the kids, a judge may appoint a stranger as a guardian. This person would be entrusted with administering the funds for the benefit of your children. And what if the guardian’s decisions are not in line with your intentions? If you have not specifically named this person as guardian and provided a blueprint for providing for your children, there are bound to be differences in opinion. Bottom line: you would be leaving your children’s future to chance.

The good news is that meeting with an attorney and setting up a trust to receive and manage the life insurance proceeds will ensure that your intentions are carried out, and that your children are raised and provided for according to your own intentions.

Personally, I admit that I did not really think I needed a trust-based plan up until a few months ago. For me, getting my estate plan done is one of those (many) items on my “To-Do” list that I know is really important, so “I really need to get to that as soon as I have some down time.” But then life happens. And the down time never comes. So I get it.

  

With that being said, today (as in right this very second), I commit to having my own estate plan complete by summer’s end. I am not only doing this for myself and for my daughters, but also for the larger goal of being able to educate parents about the importance of planning for their families’ future. We are committed to being able to offer this service for our clients, and that is very exciting because it means that we can reach more people and touch more lives.  So, stay tuned, and til next time…

PEACE, LOVE & LAWYERING J

Alexandra Kontos (the “K”)

RKE Law Group

Chief Business Development Officer, Guardian of Client Happiness and Team Culture, Attorney & Head of the Family Wealth Building Division

The Hardest Decision I Ever Made

Lisa Ehrenreich, Attorney
Partner, RKE Law Group

I’m the “E” in “RKE”, and for anyone that has ever thought about opening up your own company or business (yes, believe it or not, I've learned that a law firm IS a business), I think you’ll find my personal story quite interesting – and perhaps even inspiring if you’re on the fence about moving forward with your own personal entrepreneurial dream.

I come from a long line of small business owners on both my mother’s and my father’s side of the family. My grandfather on my mother’s side owned several small businesses over his life time – though none of them were ever very monetarily successful. My grandfather on my dad’s side was a clothing tailor and owned his own shop most of his working life.

My father, following in his father’s footsteps, opened up a motorcycle shop in the Fort Walton Beach area when he was young which he owned for many years. My dad then met my mom and decided to try a different, new business venture. He decided to pioneer a new business model (which to our knowledge had never been attempted before) over 40 years ago. He decided to try renting out these new water craft vehicles called “jet ski’s” right off the beach to anyone who wanted to ride for a 30-60 minute interval. My dad started out with a mere two jet ski’s to rent. He then grew and expanded the business over the years. When I was 15, I remember being at my parent’s business on the beach and counting over 30 jet ski’s and the new “wave runners” that had just come out. They still own the business and continue to rent watercraft today. It was a very unique and cool up bringing for me and my brother and sisters.

Although owning such a unique seasonal business, on the beach, by the water and in the sun, may seem like the coolest and best business in the world (for me and my friends it sure was!), I also saw firsthand the stress and angst of what business ownership could entail. For more than 20 years now, my parent’s employee count during the summer months has been around 18-20 employees. Over the years, I witnessed employees not showing up or calling out unexpectedly; the stress of dealing with all walks of life from the general public; watching my parents have to completely re-build their business countless times due to hurricane devastation (and worrying about this constantly every summer and fall), and the concern and fear that would settle on my parents’ faces after a particularly slow day, or even worse, a slow week or month. Heaven forbid if it was a rainy summer! My parents were constantly concerned about being able to meet the expenses of the business, their payroll for the week, and after everything was paid, whether they would be able to take anything home for them to pay for our families bills and to put food on our table.

I witnessed my mother being constantly stressed out about our finances at home, as well as just the general concerns that come along with owning a business, including taxes, insurance, processing payroll timely, paying bills on-time and every other concern that comes along with owning your own business.

I remember my mom always telling me when I was growing up, “Lisa, you never want to own your own business. It takes over your life and you become a slave to it.” Needless to say, watching my parent’s stress every summer over the business and heeding my mother’s advice, I made a personal resolution when I was in high school that I was going to go to college, get a great job (I wasn't sure what in – I just knew it was going to be great) and that I was going to focus on climbing the “corporate ladder” all the way to the top. I had absolutely no interest in being as stressed out as my parents looked and felt every summer.

Fast forward 15 years from my sophomore year of high school. I had successfully completed college with honors (in a degree that I absolutely did not enjoy – computer technology and database management), worked a brief period of time at an office job in “Corporate America” (which I also discovered I wasn't that crazy about either!), and had finished law school and was the managing attorney of 30 plus people at a large law firm in Fort Lauderdale, FL. I found myself constantly stressed out and unable to sleep, tired and anxious, and between my commute and work hours, dedicating a minimum of 60 plus hours every week to working for someone else. I was not a happy camper and I was completely burned out after a mere 5 years. At this point, my parent’s stress levels in their business seemed like something that I would happily exchange my current professional life for. I also felt trapped with very little freedom and independence. I wanted something to be different but didn't know what to do or how to proceed in my professional life.

Enter my now business partner and “sister-in-law” Monica Reyes. Monica is someone who seemed to have always had the itch to go out on her own. We met and worked together at the law firm where I was managing at this time. Monica and I had become fast friends and she had quickly relayed her ambitions to go out on her own and start her own practice or other business venture. At first, I remember thinking, “well, good for her if she can do that – but this is definitely not for me”. However, the more that Monica spoke about it and the more miserable and burned out that I became with my own professional life, the more appealing this talk of opening your own business became to me. Before I knew it, I wanted in. I wanted to go with her and take the leap into the vast unknown – the leap into owning your own law practice.

We started out with a very small micro loan (which I’m proud to say we paid back in less than two years) and working from our homes. We rented out office space to meet clients, met clients in our condo lobbies and hustled! Our other sister-in-law, Alexandra Kontos, joined us a few months after we took the leap and jumped right in with everything that we were doing. RKE was officially born! We had an office space and our first employee within a year. As our firm (business) exploded, we quickly grew to 5 employees, then 15, then 25 - all the way up to 40.

We all learned, and learned quickly, about the need to have HR policies, and time clocks, and up-to-date technology. We also learned about employees that called in at the last minute or were no shows, about having to deal with Bar regulations, about days and weeks when the in-flow of clients seemed to slow and falter, as well as the stress that comes with having to make sure that our firm’s (now it was really becoming a business in my mind) expenses, payroll and overhead were met. And lastly, that there was something left over for us to take home to pay our bills and put food on our tables.

I will admit – there have been some scary times when I felt beyond overwhelmed. When I was working consistent 60 plus hour weeks and felt stressed beyond belief. I will also admit that there were times that I wanted to throw my hands up and walk away from our business - that I actually almost wished that I was working for someone else.

But then something strange happened - I found that I couldn't. That as hard and as stressed and scared that I felt at times, that for the first time in my professional life, I also felt a sort of personal freedom – an independence in my professional life that I had never experienced before. And I had absolutely grown to love and respect both of my business partners beyond belief. My firm had become my life and my family, and I realized that this was something that I had built and created collectively with my partners. I could never walk away from this creation without a fight. 

The moral of my story is that if you have ever wondered about opening up your own business or had any sort of entrepreneurial dream – just take the plunge and do it! There is no guarantee that you will succeed (but there never is in life, is there?). In fact, most business owners that venture out on their own don’t make it past the year mark their first time. And there are times that it will be scary, and you will feel stressed out beyond your dreams as you grow and learn with your business. However, I can guarantee you that the rewards that are to be reaped when you've achieved success, be it first time success or on a third try, are immense. I've learned that it’s about the journey along the way and not necessarily about the destination. So go on – take the plunge and start your own business – and see how your life and your world around you changes in ways your never thought possible.

I wish you the best of luck. And if you feel like you need assistance as you open up your business, you can give us a call at anytime and we’ll be happy to help you and provide you with some advice – both legal and the type that we have learned on our personal journey.

Until next time….

Lisa Ehrenreich (The "E")

RKE Law Group

Chief Execution Officer, Attorney & Head of the Harmonious Family Separation Division

The Power of Partnership

Monica Reyes, Esq.
Partner, RKE Law Group

When I got the itch to start a law firm, somehow I knew intuitively I needed someone to start it with. Not everyone needs someone, and not everyone can work well with others.  I didn’t think I was the partnership type (and I know my mom would agree), but I know now it fits me well. What matters is not just personality, but how you relate and complement each other. How you fit as puzzle pieces making something much bigger and more powerful than you could be if you were to stand out on your own. This is the Power of Partnership.

As you know, I have 2 beautiful and talented partners that I own RKE Law Group with. We have been together for 4 years and we are still happily partnered. We are definitely a success story. I have heard horror stories and have seen them myself. It’s a relationship, so you need to care for it and cultivate it or else it can go sour, FAST!!

My partners are 2 of my best friends. They both know me almost as well as my mother does, and we have all gone through so much together both professionally and personally. Our partnership is based on a foundation of honesty, communication and love. However, when we started, it wasn’t always rainbows and butterflies. It took a lot of work to get aligned how we are today, a lot of conversations, and a lot of reevaluating.  Funny, once we figured out what we were doing wrong, all it took was a shift.

The key to our success (I wish I could say we did it all on our own), started when we hired a business coach. I would give her a shout out, but I don’t want to embarrass her (Jody Johnson we LOVE you!). She’s kind of a bad ass in communication and conflict resolution and she specializes in partnerships in business. We didn’t know that when we met her, but it was clear once she became our coach because she had the magic touch.

The first thing she made us do was take a variety of personality and behavioral assessment tests. One of the tests she had us take was the Gallup Strengthfinder test:  (https://www.gallupstrengthscenter.com). For $10, you can find out what your top 5 strengths are (out of 34) aka what you are naturally good at. I have Ideation as a strength, so I am an idea machine. I have ideas every hour of the day (not all good ones) and I have what’s called pattern recognition. It’s a strategic strength, so I am good at seeing opportunities, and creating unlikely opportunities. One of my partners has Woo as a strength. So she is an influencer and can “woo” or win people over easily.

When you are working in your strength, you feel like you are in your flow. You feel energized and maybe even happiest. Knowing this type of information as you can imagine, can be quite powerful. As an individual, this was incredibly empowering for me.  It honed in what I was good at and what needed to be refined. Anything to get myself closer to my passion and my purpose- SIGN ME UP!!

As a team, taking these tests was one of the best things we ever did for our company. This gave us a starting point in developing roles, what accountabilities were needed, and most importantly, what our weaknesses were. We knew right off the bat what the 3 of us DIDN’T have and what we needed in order to close the loop. Put us all together and we make a semi-circle, with a small gap that was missing. Luckily we had someone in our staff that had strengths that could fill that gap. If we didn’t, we would’ve known exactly what strengths we needed in a person to hire so nothing fell through the crack. Talk about efficiency!

So now we are happy and working smarter not harder. We understand that everyone has weaknesses, and someone would be better placed in a role that is aligned with their strengths. Otherwise, you have someone who is “miscast”, and it is frustrating for EVERYONE. We have used this same technique for most of the hiring we have done. It all has to do with our wiring as human beings, so whether you like it or not, you can try to make a weakness into a strength, but it will take A LOT more work and you will feel the unnaturalness of it.

There truly is power in the partnership. As a trio, we are way more marketable, we have way more fun, and more to bring to the table. The key is to fit each other until it clicks, otherwise you have unhealthy competition and a partnership is about being a team. So if you’re thinking about going out on your own, I hope I’ve given you something to think about. If I had to do it all over again, I would do it exactly the same way. I love my Sisters-in-Law and in Business and I know the unique value they bring. Whoever said three’s a crowd was definitely not referring to business!!

Do you have a story about a partnership you’d like to share? What was the biggest lesson you learned? I’d love to hear about it!

Until the next time…

Monica Reyes (The "R"), RKE Law Group

Chief Visionary Officer, Attorney and Head of the Entrepreneurial Development Division

Start Before You’re Ready!

Alexandra Kontos Esq.
RKE Law Group, Partner

I have always loved to write. I graduated from college with a degree in Public Relations. I even worked as a Senior Staff Writer for my college newspaper. Then came law school during which I un-learned everything I’d learned about writing, and replaced it with the rigid, law school-required IRAC method (Issue, Rule, Analysis, Conclusion… for those who are curious). Then, of course, followed several years of drafting legal letters, notices and motions in my practice. I’ve done my share of writing. So, why have I felt so much resistance to sitting down and committing to writing this blog?

I’ve recently picked up meditation as a way to relieve stress and become a more centered and spiritual person. I’m a huge fan so far! When I sit in the “stillness” (as my woo-woo friends say), I feel guided to answers that I’ve been looking for. So, for the past couple of weeks, I’ve been seeing “signs” and Facebook and Instagram posts EVERYWHERE with this message: “Start before you’re ready.” So here I am!

When I look back at the last few years since we first hung our shingle and went out on our own, that is exactly how we’ve approached opportunities:  we start before we’re ready. The three of us met at a giant “foreclosure mill” law firm during the height of the foreclosure/housing market crisis. The work itself was very faceless, in that there was little, if any, client interaction, and we certainly weren't helping anyone, aside from helping the banks foreclose on struggling homeowners who could not afford their mortgage payments.

I remember conversations about how we should go out on our own and actually help people SAVE their homes. We had the experience from both sides of the law; we loved to help people; and we wanted to make an impact in this world (doesn't every lawyer start out wanting that?) We had plenty of drive, but what we DIDN'T have was capital to comfortably start the business, clients, or a concrete plan for what the business would actually look like and how it would operate.

We did it anyway. We street-hustled our way into business networking groups and professional happy hours, and talked to whoever would listen. We gave away a lot of free legal advice, and a ton of our time, but we made relationships that later proved to be invaluable to our law firm and to us as individuals. We started before we were ready, and learned along the way.

These efforts led us to work with a marketing company who gave us a huge (and I mean HUGE) boost to our bottom line. This company knew how to generate leads, and allowed us to focus on what we were good at: the law and helping people. The explosive growth in business came at the expense of having to outsource certain aspects of our business, and not having complete control and autonomy over our law firm, and over the manner in which we served our clients. As fate would have it, about a year later, it was time to put our big-girl pants on and bring everything back in-house (i.e. I hired six loan modification processors in one week’s time!) And, no, we were definitely NOT ready for this. But we did it anyway. And, thank you Universe!

Now that you know our story, I’ll tell you about our intention for this blog (by the way, I can actually feel the resistance lifting as my fingers hit the keys on my MacBook Pro... Yay!!)

Our vision is to provide a platform for women to learn about who we are, and why we do what we do. The legal world has traditionally been a man’s world, and we are here to change that. We want to inspire women to gain control of their lives, and to lead their families and their businesses to a healthy and abundant future. We want to inspire little girls (like my daughters, Alexa, 5, and Athena, 3) to set super-high goals, and to never play small in life. We want to change the perception of the legal industry and, while we’re at it, we want to change the world.

Please keep reading this blog. Send us comments. Tell us what you want to hear more about and less about. At RKE, we dig honesty, so don’t be shy! You will hear from Monica and Lisa, my “Sisters-in-Law and Business” (a/k/a my Partners in this crazy venture), as well as more from me. We will probably stumble along the way, but we totally expect that… and that’s part of the fun!

Remember that if you feel resistance before setting out to take action on something you've been wanting or meaning to do, this is totally normal. The reward on the other side will be so great! (I promise!!) Martin Luther King, Jr. said it best:  “Faith is taking the first step even when you can’t see the whole staircase.”

So, I encourage you to take the first step. Start Before You’re Ready! J

Peace, Love and Lawyering…

Alexandra Kontos, (The “K”)

Chief Business Development Officer; Guardian of Client and Team Happiness and RKE Culture; Attorney & Head of the Family Wealth Building Division

Two Apps to Help Personal Finance Success

In lean times like those we have all been experiencing, it's important to get your personal finances under control and understand how important it is to manage them properly. Creating a detailed budget and having the discipline to stick to it is often easier said than done. 

Thankfully there are plenty of apps available that can help you not only track your income and expenses, but also stash some extra cash which we can all learn to do better.

If you need a little extra help managing your income, bills and spending and with setting aside funds for a rainy day you try one of our favorite free personal finance apps for personal finance:

Mint.com draws data directly from all of your financial accounts, including your personal bank, retirement, college loan and credit card accounts. Then it tells you what you owe to whom, in real-time. It also generates individualized payment and savings plans to help you reach your financial goals.

Mint can be a smart choice for busy people who don't have the time to manually, meticulously enter each and every one of their financial transactions. It automatically tracks and categorizes your activity in each of the accounts you give it permission to sync up with, making it easier to build -- and hopefully adhere to -- a realistic budget. Mint is available for Android, iPhone and iPad.

Just like its piggy bank-inspired name implies, SmartyPig helps you save money. There's only one catch you have to open a free, FDIC-insured SmartyPig savings account. Luckily they're free, just like the app, which lets you save for things you want, like perhaps a house, a car or a vacation. Add money to your savings goals whenever you want right from your phone or tablet.  It is rally easy and really user friendly.

You'll need to link up an existing bank or credit union savings or checking account to siphon funds to your SmartyPig account from.  Interest rates for SmartyPig on balances between $0 and $50,000 earn 0.995 percent (one percent annual percentage yield).

SmartyPig is available for Android, iPhone and iPad.

Read more: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/228453#ixzz2m3wGfblB

3 Must Read Blogs for Personal Finance

There are a number of blogs on finance out there.  It can be confusing to know what is right when you are trying to find information.  Here are 3 sites that are perfect for getting current, usable information to help you with your finances.

Get Rich Slowly. I'm not alone in naming this one of the top money blogs. Big Magazines such as Time and Money magazines also have called Get Rich Slowly one of the best. Creator J.D. Roth's philosophy that building wealth takes time but is really effective. He believes in setting goals, spending less than you earn and paying yourself first and the posts on his blog reflect these beliefs. They are easy read and easy to relate to. Most of all, his tales of overcoming $35,000 in debt and achieving independence are inspiring.

Wise Bread. This site is about being smart with money or as its tagline says, "Living Large on a Small Budget." What's great is there are a broad range of money-related topics it tackled -- from opening a Roth IRA for your child to reusing detergent bottles as a way to spend less and save more. Tons of tips and tricks that you can start using now.

Money Crashers.  Money Crashers provides sensible advice to people of all ages and stages of life. It covers all aspects of personal finance, including investing, credit and debt, careers, family and home, and even small business. It is sort of an all purpose site that is really user friendly.

We hope you enjoy these sites and learn some valuable information from them!

Investing Mistakes to Avoid When You Are Building a Nest Egg

Along the way, you may make a few investing mistakes, however there are big mistakes that you absolutely must avoid if you are to be a successful investor.

For instance, the biggest investing mistake that you could ever make is to not invest at all, or to put off investing until later. Make your money work for you even if all you can spare is $20 a week to invest!

While not investing at all or putting off investing until later are big mistakes, investing before you are in the financial position to do so is another big mistake. Get your current financial situation in order first, and then start investing. Get your credit cleaned up, pay off high interest loans and credit cards, and put at least three months of living expenses in savings. Once this is done, you are ready to start letting your money work for you.

This will be very important for you if you are recovering from a foreclosure or major financial set back.

Don't invest to get rich quick. That is the riskiest type of investing that there is, and you will more than likely lose. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it! Instead, invest for the long term, and have the patience to weather the storms and allow your money to grow. Only invest for the short term when you know you will need the money in a short amount of time, and then stick with safe investments, such as certificates of deposit.

Don't put all of your eggs into one basket. Scatter it around various types of investments for the best returns. Also, don't move your money around too much. Let it ride. Pick your investments carefully, invest your money, and allow it to grow don't panic if the stock drops a few dollars. If the stock is a stable stock, it will go back up.

A common mistake that a lot of people make is thinking that their investments in collectibles will really pay off.

Again, if this were true, everyone would do it. Don't count on your Coke collection or your book collection to pay for your retirement years! Count on investments made with cold hard cash instead.

We hope these tips will help you focus on recovering and investing in your future.  Even if you have had a major financial set back, it is never too late to start saving, investing and getting back on track.