Lou Steinhauer: Hello, everybody. Why don’t we get started?
First, I want to congratulate you all for being here. More than 50 percent of the people in the United States never do anything like this. They don’t do any planning. They don’t get educated. They don’t do anything like this. You ought to be complimented on taking this big step.
I want you to relax tonight. You will learn a lot. You will have fun. This should be fun. This is not going to be tense or intimidating, and you will learn things.
Let me introduce myself first. My name is Lou Steinhauer. Call me Lou. I have two roles in our firm. The first one is, I’m the computer guy, and the second is, I’m Jan’s husband. I can tell people, the relative importance shifts depending on what’s happening.
The rest of our team, let me tell you who they are. We have three attorneys in our office. There’s Jan Copley. There’s Elsie Wind, who is sitting at the back table. You probably saw her when you came in. There’s David Nelson, who’s over there.
We have Julio Delick, who is our Director of Client Services. We have Anna Lisa Quinn, who’s also a Director of Client Services. And we have Lillet Parsadanian, who’s also at the back table. She’s our director of client relations. She’s the one you’ve probably talked to on the phone. She’s the one who will be communicating directly most of the time. That’s who we are.
I used to introduce Jan by telling all her qualifications ‑‑ where she went to law school, when she passed the bar, and so on. I decided that didn’t make any sense. I’m going to give you a first advice. When you go see an attorney, make sure they went to law school, and make sure they passed the bar. I’m assuming that every attorney you see is going to be like that.
What makes Jan different is [indecipherable 2:13] . We believe in educating our clients because the more you know, the better educated you are, the better you can make decisions that are unique to you. It’s not cookie cutter. It’s a unique decision that is determined by your circumstances.
Jan is nationally known. She and Elsie and David are constantly going to seminars around the country. As you can imagine, the law is constantly changing. They have to keep up on the latest. Jan also speaks at these seminars. Literally, attorneys will fly across the country to attend a seminar to hear Jan speak about something. She is very well‑qualified.
We specialize, our firm does, in estate planning, business planning, and real estate. In California, as you all know, real estate is significant. You can’t get away from it. Today you’re going to learn about some of the pros and cons of real estate, how to protect your investment in real estate, and how to do some shielding from creditors and to keep all your assets, real estate and other assets, safe.
In your handout is a confidential information sheet. Let me pull mine out to show you. Looks like this. At the top is some information about you, like your name and address. We appreciate if you fill this out. We take this seriously because it lets us know what you’re interested in and what we can improve on.
Also, as we go through the presentation, there are some boxes in the middle. We’ll ask you, if you’re interested in more information, to check a box, and we will send you additional information on that particular subject.
As we’re speaking, please ask questions if you think of something. That makes it more interactive, and it lets us know what your interests are.
A couple of administrative things. If you’re parked in a lot, do not worry about the validation. We have taken care of it. There is no cost for the validation or for getting your car back. Please turn off your cell phones, if you would. Make sure they’re off. You may have noticed we are recording tonight’s session. So, well, we are. [laughs]
OK, I think we’ll get started. I’d like to introduce my wonderful wife and turn it over to her.
Jan Copley: Thank you, sweetheart. Everything Lou says about me is completely unbiased.
[laughter]
Lou: I’m totally objective.
Jan: He’s totally objective, so you can believe everything he just said. I would like to add to it by saying that one of the things that we pride ourselves on in our office is providing customized planning for our clients and addressing our clients’ concerns.
I thought I would start the process this evening by asking people why they’re here, so I can make sure that I can answer their questions as we go along this evening. Do we have a brave volunteer to start? If we don’t, I’m going to start picking on people. Who’s going to be the first person to go. All right, yes, sir.
Audience Member: I’d like to learn more about the probate process.
Jan: The question was, “I’d like to learn more about probate.” What is it? What’s involved? Is that…? OK. Probate. What is it? Why is it bad?
