The Advantages of an Estate SherpaSM

Using an Estate Sherpa gives advantages for ensuring key documents work precisely as you expect.

Mountain climbing and estate planning may not seem related, but they have interesting connections.  In mountain climbing, one sets out to reach the top, but doing so requires good planning and preparation—and careful deliberation with each move made.  Similarly, planning what happens to your assets and your children in the event you die requires good planning, preparation, and deliberation.  Ask anyone about famous mountain climbs, and they’ll naturally mention Mount Everest. Understandably so. It’s the world’s tallest mountain, a towering 29,032 feet above sea level.  But many don’t realize the trek to the top of Everest usually involves assistance from a personal sherpa—a person who guides, advises, and assists climbers.  As you contemplate making the journey through estate planning, the sherpa offers a glimpse into how you can make it to the top of a major life event.  In fact, it’s why LegacyWise offers Estate Planning Sherpas. These individuals deliver a significant advantage to other approaches.

What is a sherpa?

Climbing Everest is an arduous, two-month journey requiring significant time, resources, and physical stamina to get to the top and back. The final stretch to the summit alone includes a trek through the “death zone,” a place where oxygen is so thin, it’s insufficient to sustain life for very long.  Many have died on Everest. Countless others, injured or deprived of oxygen, turn back.  And then there are those who summit, achieving something few humans have ever done.  Successful or not, many outsiders don’t realize that most people hire a personal sherpa to accompany them.  The sherpa’s role is to guide, advise, and assist the climber. At times, a sherpa may intervene to ensure the health and well-being of the person. This includes even making the occasional rescue.  So critical is the sherpa to the Everest journey that rarely does a climber decide not to hire one. This includes many seasoned, experienced climbers. The sherpas’ technical knowledge, their familiarity with the terrain, and their experience encountering so many unique situations make them indispensable allies.

Estate Sherpas

Estate planning involves serious matters related to death. While the actual act isn’t a matter of life and death like an Everest climb, it still requires making decisions with profound, potentially life-changing impacts.  One can go it alone and try to create an estate plan. This offers significant cost savings. However, like a solo climber navigating Everest, there is no consultation to help avoid a risky step or understand where a particular tool or technique might be warranted due to unique state laws.  Some people recognize these problems and hire lawyers to get things done instead. That usually ensures the technical expertise gets provided, but often to the tune of thousands of dollars. That’s not ideal. Only 32 percent of Americans have an estate plan, and one of the top reasons many say they don’t is because of the expense to create one, according to a 2024 Caring.com survey LegacyWise’s Estate Sherpas offer a better way, one that guides, advises, and assists with each move in a manner designed to ensure you don’t make a misstep.  It also runs a fraction of the cost of traditional legal services.

What Estate Sherpas do

LegacyWise offers a powerful blend of technology and people to help you do your estate planning yourself.  It starts with your online registration for a live or virtual workshop, followed by answering questions before the workshop.  The Estate Sherpa attends the workshop and runs it. This person guides you and other participants question by question through the online software. Each question gets presented in simple, understandable language, but the Estate Sherpa shares additional explanations and context as needed.  LegacyWise isn’t a law firm, and Estate Sherpas can’t give legal advice. But like sherpas at Everest, their technical knowledge, their familiarity with the terrain, and their experience encountering so many unique situations make them your indispensable ally.  Between the pre-workshop questionnaire, the workshop, and the final review and execution of documents, your documents can get “Done in a Day.”™

What is more, you pay a workshop fee, and then you pay 1 percent of your annual household income for your documents (capped at $2,500). For individuals and couples who cannot pay 1 percent of their annual household income, they may set the price they can pay.

Estate planning is like mountain climbing. With good planning, preparation, and deliberation, you can make it to the top. And LegacyWise’s Estate Sherpas are there at your side each step of the way.

Click here LegacyWise – Why Choose LegacyWise? to sign up for a workshop today and complete your estate documents alongside one of our Estate Sherpas.