Financial planning support for private client lawyers
Private client work often identifies the legal framework for succession, ownership and family wealth.
The client may still need help ensuring their pensions, investments, insurance, retirement planning and liquidity work alongside that framework.
Josh Clancey works with private client lawyers where financial planning needs to sit alongside wills, succession planning, trusts, beneficiary arrangements and internationally held assets.
Connecting the legal structure with the client's financial assets
Private client planning can involve assets and arrangements that do not all operate in the same way.
The client's legal advice may deal with wills, succession, trusts, ownership and estate planning, while their wider financial position includes pensions, investment accounts, insurance, business interests and assets held in several jurisdictions.
Josh's role is to review the financial-planning elements and help ensure they are considered alongside the legal advice already being provided.
That may include:
- reviewing pensions and retirement accounts
- reviewing beneficiary nominations
- investment planning
- cash-flow and retirement modelling
- estate liquidity
- protection planning
- coordinating assets held across different jurisdictions
- implementing investment or pension recommendations where appropriate
Legal advice remains with the client's lawyer.
Client situations where private client and financial planning commonly intersect
A client has assets and beneficiaries in several countries
The legal estate plan may need to work alongside pensions, investment accounts, insurance and beneficiary arrangements that sit outside the client's core estate documents.
A client has recently received an inheritance
Once the legal and tax position has been established, the client may need to decide how inherited capital fits into their investments, retirement strategy, family wealth and future spending.
A client has significant pension assets
Pensions can have their own nomination, beneficiary and death-benefit considerations and may need to be reviewed alongside the client's wider estate plan.
A family has US and non-US connections
US citizenship, residence history, beneficiaries or US-situs assets can add an additional layer to otherwise international private client planning.
A non-US client holds significant US-situs assets
The legal and tax exposure may need specialist analysis, while the client may separately need to review asset ownership, investments, diversification and estate liquidity.
A client has recently been bereaved
Once probate, succession and tax issues are being addressed, the surviving client may need help reorganising investments, pensions, cash flow and longer-term financial priorities.
Questions that may indicate a wider financial-planning need
Do the client's pensions align with the estate plan?
Pension nominations and death-benefit arrangements may need to be considered alongside wills and wider succession planning.
Are sufficient liquid assets available?
The legal structure may be appropriate, but the family may still need readily available capital for spending, liabilities, tax or other estate costs.
Are investments spread across several jurisdictions?
Different account structures, ownership arrangements and custody locations can complicate administration and future succession.
Are beneficiaries in different countries?
The client's family structure may affect how investments, pensions, insurance and liquidity should be coordinated.
Does the client have substantial US exposure?
US citizenship, US beneficiaries or US-situs assets may require additional specialist tax or legal analysis before financial recommendations are implemented.
Is the client approaching retirement?
Estate planning and retirement planning should not be developed independently where the same assets are expected to fund lifetime spending and pass to future beneficiaries.
Has the client's family position changed?
Marriage, divorce, bereavement, inheritance or relocation can all justify reviewing pensions, nominations, investments and protection.
Professional resources for private client lawyers
The Document Centre includes technical briefs, professional guides and practical checklists covering cross-border estate and beneficiary planning, pension death benefits, US-situs assets, life assurance, international families and clients with assets across several jurisdictions.
These resources are designed to help identify where financial planning may need to sit alongside legal and estate-planning work.
Useful resources for private client lawyers
The Professional Adviser's Guide to Cross-Border Estate and Beneficiary Planning
A broader professional guide covering the interaction between internationally held assets, pensions, beneficiaries and wider estate planning.
Cross-Border Beneficiary and Estate Coordination
A focused technical brief covering the financial-planning issues that can sit alongside wills, succession and international estate work.
Pension Death Benefits, Nominations and Wills
A technical resource examining the coordination required between pension arrangements, beneficiary nominations and the wider estate plan.
Life Assurance and Estate Liquidity for International Families
A technical brief covering the role financial planning can play where an estate or family may require additional liquidity.
International Estate Planning Coordination Checklist
A practical checklist for reviewing pensions, investments, beneficiaries, insurance and other financial assets alongside legal estate planning.
Pension and Beneficiary Coordination Checklist
A practical tool for reviewing whether pension arrangements and beneficiary planning remain aligned.
Pensions often sit outside the core legal discussion
Pensions can represent a substantial proportion of a client's wealth but may be governed by different contractual and scheme rules from other assets.
That means the legal estate plan and the pension arrangements should not automatically be assumed to produce the same outcome.
Financial-planning work may include reviewing:
- pension beneficiaries
- expression-of-wish or nomination forms
- existing pension structures
- retirement-income requirements
- the role of pensions within the wider asset base
- liquidity available elsewhere in the estate
- whether pension arrangements remain appropriate after a change in family circumstances
Where legal interpretation is required, that remains with the private client lawyer.
Investment ownership and succession
International families may accumulate investments through a mixture of personal accounts, joint ownership, companies, trusts, retirement accounts and insurance-based structures.
The legal adviser may establish how those assets should be owned or passed on.
Josh can help review whether the financial arrangements themselves remain appropriate for the client's objectives.
That may include:
- investment strategy
- diversification
- account consolidation
- currency exposure
- retirement funding
- liquidity
- protection
- implementation following legal or tax advice
The objective is to ensure the client's financial arrangements support rather than undermine the wider planning.
Estate liquidity and lifetime financial planning
Succession planning needs to coexist with the client's own lifetime needs.
Assets earmarked for future beneficiaries may also be expected to fund retirement, healthcare, family support or other expenditure.
Cash-flow modelling can help test whether proposed gifting, insurance or investment decisions remain consistent with the client's own financial security.
Where a legal strategy changes asset ownership or access, the financial plan may need to be updated accordingly.
This can be particularly important for clients with illiquid business interests, property-heavy estates or significant pension assets.
Working alongside the legal advice
Where the lawyer has already established the appropriate legal structure, Josh can work from that advice.
For example:
- the lawyer advises on wills and succession, while Josh reviews beneficiary nominations, pensions and investment accounts
- the lawyer establishes a trust or ownership structure, while Josh considers the associated investment strategy where appropriate
- the lawyer advises on estate planning, while Josh reviews estate liquidity and protection
- the lawyer coordinates probate or an inheritance, while Josh helps the beneficiary incorporate the assets into their wider financial plan
- the lawyer advises an international family on succession, while Josh reviews pensions, investments and retirement assets across jurisdictions
The aim is not to duplicate legal work. It is to make sure the client's financial arrangements reflect it.
Where Josh's role ends
Josh does not draft wills, establish trusts, provide probate services or replace the client's private client lawyer.
He does not provide legal advice on succession, ownership, trust law or estate administration.
Where a financial recommendation depends on legal interpretation or specialist tax advice, the appropriate professional should establish that position.
Josh can then incorporate the outcome into the client's pension, investment, retirement, protection and wider financial plan.
Technical briefings for private client teams
Josh can provide focused briefings for private client, trust and estate-planning teams working with internationally mobile families.
Topics can include pension death benefits, cross-border beneficiaries, US-situs assets, estate liquidity, international retirement and coordinating financial assets across jurisdictions.
Have a client case you would like to discuss?
If your legal work has highlighted a pension, investment, liquidity, beneficiary or wider financial-planning issue, an initial discussion can help establish whether Josh is likely to add value.
There is no requirement to make a formal introduction simply to determine whether the case falls within his remit.