Episode 3 | Larry Macklin, President-Elect National Association of Estate Planners and Councils (NAEPC): Estate Planning Essentials

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Episode Notes

In this insightful episode of the Buried in Work podcast, host Adam Zuckerman sits down with Larry Macklin, President-Elect of the ‪@NAEPCpresents‬ National Association of Estate Planners and Councils (NAEPC).

With over 40 years of experience, Lawrence shares his journey from CPA to tax attorney to a leading figure in estate planning. He highlights the importance of collaboration among professionals in providing the best estate planning services, discusses the vital resources NAEPC offers, and explains why having an accredited estate planner is crucial for effective estate planning.

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐘𝐨𝐮'𝐥𝐥 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧:

• 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐨𝐥𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐍𝐀𝐄𝐏𝐂: How NAEPC supports over 270 member councils and 30,000 individual members with invaluable resources and education.
• 𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐄𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠: Why estate planning should involve collaboration among attorneys, CPAs, financial advisors, and other professionals to maximize client outcomes.
• 𝐈𝐦𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐀𝐜𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: What sets the Accredited Estate Planner (AEP) and Estate Planning Law Specialist (EPLS) designations apart, and why they are essential for professionals.
• 𝐓𝐢𝐩𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐄𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐄𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠: The importance of starting estate planning today, regardless of your wealth, to ensure your wishes are honored and your loved ones are protected.
• 𝐅𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐓𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐄𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠: Insights on the evolving nature of estate planning, including changing tax laws and the growing role of technology.

If you're an estate planning professional, make sure you're leveraging the collaborative resources that NAEPC offers. Visit naepc.org to learn more and see how you can enhance your practice.

About Larry Macklin

Lawrence J. Macklin, Esq., CPA, AEP® is the President Elect of the National Association of Estate Planners & Councils.

Transcript

This is the Buried in Work podcast, where we share tips and interview experts to help you simplify estate planning and end of life tasks.

Adam Zuckerman 00:10

I'm your host, Adam Zuckerman, and today we have a very special guest, Larry Macklin. Larry is the president -elect of the National Association of Estate Planners and Councils. That's the NAEPC for people that are familiar. And they're an organization that's dedicated to promoting excellence in estate planning through a team approach.

Now, NAEPC has a very rich history. They date back to 1962. And they are probably one of, if not the most influential organizations in the space. They support over 270 member councils. They serve over 30 ,000 individual members across various professional disciplines. And Larry's here to talk about it. So Larry, thank you so much for joining.

Larry Macklin 00:46

It's my pleasure. I'm so glad to be here.

Adam Zuckerman 00:47

It's going to be a fun conversation. For people that aren't familiar with NAEPC, what do they need to know?

Larry Macklin 00:54

Well, that's a really wide open comment. see. First of all, we affectionately refer to it as opposed to NAEPC as NAPAC. It's easier to say. So NAPAC is an organization, the national organization that supports 270 member councils, as you mentioned. For example, I am also part of the Baltimore State Planning Council. Baltimore State Planning Council has about 300 members who are state planners of all sorts and the National Association supports towards the Baltimore State Planning Council as it does its other 269 councils with resources, education resources, ways to help the members collaborate, and with tons of information on the website that can help the council itself with what its mission is, which the mission would be to help its members be better estate planners. So, for example, the NAPAC mission statement is to... promote excellence in estate planning by serving its member councils and delivering exceptional resources and unsurpassed education. As well, we also recognize something called the estate planning law specialist, a certification for attorneys to indicate their specialty in estate planning. We also administer the accredited estate planner designation, AEP as we refer to it. And the AEP is something that we're trying to get the word out more because estate planners can be attorneys, can be CPAs, they can be trust officers, they can be philanthropic professionals, they can be financial advisors or insurance professionals. So there's lots of people who come together to really maximize the estate planning for the particular client who's looking for an estate planner.

Adam Zuckerman 02:38

Where do people typically find NAEPC in their journey? Is it they're starting off earlier in their career and someone tells them about it and they go to the website to learn? Where do you play in the journey?

Larry Macklin 02:49

Right, so our members are generally the actual councils. So even though the councils themselves have 30 ,000 members who are those individuals, the members of NAEPC are the councils. So we provide resources to the councils. The resources are also generally for the members themselves or some that are council focused, some that are member focused. So an individual estate planner is first going to go to their local council. They go to their local council to help network and collaborate with other professionals to again maximize the benefits they can provide to their estate planning clients. They do it in a way because estate planning really needs to be a collaborative process and that's what NAPEX stands for, the collaborative process, because no one professional can provide everything that the client needs for estate planning. The attorney can draft the documents, the CPA will do the tax returns that are associated with it, the Insurance professional will provide that insurance. The financial advisor will provide investment advice. The trust officer will help administer the trusts that are created during the estate planning process. The philanthropic professional will help the client maximize their philanthropic goal. So all of those professionals come together to help the client really maximize what their goal is in estate planning and every client's goal is going to be different.

Adam Zuckerman 04:09

What's about your journey? How did you get into the space and how did you rise the ranks to become the president of the Elect

Larry Macklin 04:14

Okay. So I hope you have a lot of time here, Adam, because we have some. Okay. All right. I'll try to make it brief, but it's hard. I've been in the profession for over 40 years. I started out as a CPA and right away discovered that as a CPA, I really enjoyed the tax work more than other CPA work. And what many of my CPA tax professionals did is they decided to pursue a tax attorney type career. So while I was working as a CPA for one of what are the largest organizations in the country with their in their tax group, I did that I went to law school at night. And when I graduated law school decided to try that. So I became a tax attorney. And as I was working for as a tax attorney, I tried to expand my career into estate planning, because a lot of estate planning does have to do with taxes for wealthier individuals, although there's lots more to estate planning as

You probably know and as our listeners know. So I became a both tax and estate planning attorney, did that for about six years and actually stumbled on a career at a very large bank in there, what we call the private bank and personal trust group. And what my role was was to just help clients further their plan, whatever it was. So it was get to know the client. What is your goal? What is your plan? What have you done so far? Here's ways that you can enhance that plan.

Although it wasn't all estate planning, it was much easier to add value in a client's estate planning goal than their other tax goals. Tax loopholes in the income tax world have been shut down tremendously over the years, but there's still a lot of estate planning that can be done. And it's not all tax oriented. And so it was just further their estate planning goals. And I did that for over 30 years at this bank until very recently when I semi -retired, left the bank, and now I'm doing kind of just consulting work on my own.

For some of those former clients and other clients. But during that career, one of the things that you need to do as a professional is go to continuing education classes. And so I did that. And as I went to continuing education classes, I wanted those classes to be as good as possible, the best possible classes they could be for all professionals. And I was exposed to some national speakers who I thought were amazing. And so I wanted to bring them back to Baltimore. So I got involved in various organizations that were planning

Continuing education in Baltimore and then through that met some people who then brought me into as I joined the Baltimore State Planning Council brought me into the group that helped plan the Baltimore State Planning Council education continue education sessions and then brought me on to their board and then brought me on to their executive committee became the president of the Baltimore State Planning Council while I was doing that I got exposed to NAPAC and what

What the Baltimore State Planning Council did is they sent me to the NAPAC annual conference, the Advanced State Planning Strategies Conference, which was an amazing experience. I actually got to go three times while I was in my executive committee at the Baltimore State Planning Council. And that, I just believe that conference was an amazing conference, but it wasn't as well attended as it should be. And so then I became, I added to my mission. How can I make this conference well, more well known to all estate planning professionals?

so that they take advantage of it. Got involved with the committee planning the conference, then got pulled into the board of NAPAC because I wanted to further enhance all the great things that NAPAC does. As I was doing that, I got pulled into various other committees within NAPAC that pulled me into the board, which then pulled me into the executive committee, which made me this year the president -elect and next year I'll be the president of NAPAC. What a journey.

Adam Zuckerman 08:02

What are some of the things that have surprised you when you look at the focus of the local chapters in Baltimore that you are working with and then transitioning to a national focus with with NAEPC?

Larry Macklin 08:13

Again, the biggest surprise that I have is that not enough people know about all of the great resources that the national group NAPAC has to offer state planning professionals. And this is true of many, many, many of the members, the 30 ,000 members of various estate planning councils around the country, are just not well -versed in within NAEPAC. And that has to do with the history. You mentioned NAEPAC was formed in 1962, early on in the podcast. But many of these councils have been around for a longer period of time. The Boston Estate Planning Council and the Baltimore Estate Planning Council are two of the first councils that were formed way back, almost 100 years ago.

I think Baltimore is now 87 years old and Boston even older than that. It was originally formed by trust officers and insurance professionals who wanted to help each other and help their clients together and then added CPAs, attorneys, philanthropic professionals, and other estate planners along the way. But those organizations, many of them again formed before the national group. So the national group went out and said, we can offer you national resources if you'd like to join.

Boston, Baltimore, and the 270 councils decided to join. So we offer these resources, but many of the members of the councils are just not aware. And I have to admit, until I became a part of the Baltimore board, I wasn't aware as a member of the Baltimore State Plan Council, just a member at large. I was not aware of all the great resources that NAPAC has, not only again for the council, but for the members of the councils themselves.

Adam Zuckerman 09:52

So the resources, let's dive in and give some specifics. And if you could clarify whether or not these are only for the councils themselves to give to their members, can an everyday individual off the street that's not part of one of your member organizations access them? let's get in the nitty gritty. What are you actually providing that that provides value?

Larry Macklin 10:10

Right. so all of the members are estate planning professionals, ultimately, right? All the members of the council are estate planning professionals. This is not for the general public. It's those professionals.

that work with the general public. So we're providing value to the professionals to help them deliver the best estate planning that they can to their clients. Well, how do they do that? One, we help them understand that the collaboration process is the best way to go. Many of the estate planners are just not as collaborative as they really should be on behalf of clients. The clients are going to get their best result if they hire advisors that will work together and collaborate on their behalf. Many advisors work in a silo. And, you know, I'm the attorney, I draft the documents. When the documents are complete, I'm done. Then the client goes to their CPA to get tax returns done or something like that. But they don't consult each other. And one of my favorite board members is an attorney and he'll always say, how can I actually really do a good job for you if I don't understand your financial situation with your financial advisor and what you're trying to do to grow your wealth?

How can I really provide the best advice? So they really need to collaborate. So NAPAC provides resources to help professionals collaborate. Then they also provide tremendous amounts of resources to help estate planners become better estate planners through education, through continuing education. The best example is the annual conference. I can't stress how amazing this conference is. Two and a half days of continuing education from the best estate planners that are out there that help each of these disciplines learn more about their discipline and how to collaborate with the other disciplines. It's just, it's an amazing experience that you have to go and do before you realize how great it is. Then NAPA has lots of other educational opportunities. We monthly webinars. We have an estate planning journal that comes out with great articles, tremendous amounts of other benefits for councils themselves. So there's a, of my favorite benefits is the no fee speaker program where current board members and past presidents of NAEPC will go to estate planning councils and give an educational session on their expertise for no fee, right? Because normally estate planning councils may have to pay a fee to bring a speaker in. The NAEPC professionals will go and provide the education for no fee. It's an amazing resource. I did that for many years myself. During the pandemic, we did it remotely. I used to do four, five, six, of in -person around the country speaker speaking events before the pandemic. During the pandemic, since we were remote, I can't tell you how many I did for this for the several years that we were doing remote to the point where I got a little burnt out. So I'm not doing it anymore. It happens. The speaking tour can certainly be. But we have lots of other people who will speak to the councils. And that's just, again, some of the resources. We have tremendous other resources available for councils and members.

Well, we appreciate you taking the time to be here today. Now, we mentioned earlier the AEP, the EPLS, that's the accredited estate planner and estate planning law specialist programs. Why are they different from others? Should people when they are looking for individuals to help them with their estate plan specifically be looking for these credentials or are they a nice to have? No, these are definitely should be people who are looking for a state planner should definitely be looking for the credentials.

And the reason we administer the accredited estate planner designation, it is the only graduate program that is available to estate planners to say, am an estate planner. I have the expertise and I'm willing to collaborate with other professionals to get the best results for the client. so again, not as well known as it needs to be this accredited estate planner, right? Because there's lots of CPAs out there who do lots of different things.

but not all of them do estate planning and not all of them are accredited in estate planning. And they should be if they're an estate planner, if they do estate planning. Same for other professionals, trust professionals, philanthropic professionals, insurance professionals, financial advisors, et cetera. If their focus is estate planning, how do you know? You can't know unless they have that advanced degree in estate planning, and that's what the accredited estate planner does. That's exactly right. We are working with several

various verticals from CPAs to attorneys across the board. And one of the things that we consistently hear is that we need to have more information about what the other people are doing in our clients ecosystem because like you said, we can't serve them properly. We even had a state preparation package that we have. We have a section for pets and we had veterinarians weigh in on what materials had to go in into that section. So the collaborative approach is something that Beryl and we're definitely espouses and recommends. You're on the ground.

every single day for the past several decades. What are some of the tips for expected estate planning that you think people should keep in mind? This is great. There's one great tip that I can give and that is estate planning needs to be done today, right? There is this constant, I'll get to that tomorrow. And you know, because I'm not gonna die, right? I've got a long life ahead of me, but it's not just about death.

It's about potential disability and there's other reasons to do it now. So, and who knows what tomorrow really will bring, right? I, I, the stories that I've heard are terrible about what happens to people, unfortunately. So do it now is the best tip that I can give. Go see your estate planning professional, get them to collaborate with their other advisors, with your other advisors to get the best result and do it today. And it applies to estate planning applies to everyone, by the way, again, a lot of people think

Well, I don't have the wealth to do estate planning, right? But there's so much involved in estate planning that's not has nothing to do with wealth. Every individual needs to have an estate plan done. And the problem is, right, if they don't go out and do it for themselves, then the law does it for them. Right. There's provisions in the law that says that if you die in test state, that you will have a will that's provided for you by the law. And again, it's not just debt.

I'm go to the hospital, I need to have an advanced medical directive in case something happens there, right? I need to have a healthcare power of attorney in case I can't make the decision myself. While I'm indisposed, whether I'm in the hospital or whatever the reason is, I need a financial power of attorney so I can get financial matters done. All of this is important and it's not just about death. So everyone needs to do a state planning to get this done. And one of the speakers at our conference many years ago, I heard say,

And this was so amazing, it just opened my eyes because I didn't think about it, right? So we help our clients with estate planning and they usually come to us later in life, right? That's when people from the North for a vote. What about their adult children, right? Their adult children need the health care power of attorney. The adult children need powers, you know, they need to have a will because you just never know. And so he opened my eyes and said, you know, I've got to do that for my adult children.

And so I did it. I just, you just sometimes you just don't think of things until you go see the professionals and the collaboration effort is really what makes it special. That's right. We we've found, surprisingly, that as the initial individuals came to us for help, they were 65 years and older, which is typically expected. But as they delved into the processes that we were helping them with, it started to to foster introductions to their children, the sandwich generation.

individuals that are taking care of both themselves and their parents and with the rising numbers of individuals over 65, 10 ,000 turning 65 every single day, this is something that is extremely important for an increasingly large percentage of the population. that's a great point to drive home. The organization has been around since 1962. As you mentioned, there's a lot of other organizations in the country that have been around long.

What is the evolution of estate planning been during your career? And then part B is what are some of the future trends that you see in the future? Yeah, that's a great question. Estate planning is constantly changing. And the reason it's constantly changing is because of there's constantly controversial situations out there about certain estate planning matters. I couldn't tell you all of them, right? But some of them have to do with taxes, some of them don't.

But there's case law out there in case as case law decides is the case laws cases are decided that may change what needs to be done within the law. And then of course, tax laws change all the time. And so as tax laws change, that may present something that needs to be done and to change someone's estate plan. And so it's important to to stay on top of all this. And then technology.

technology changes and so as technology changes more and more people are professionals are actually going to organizations that help them produce electronic documents in a more efficient way. Hopefully they know what those documents say but that's and that's very important and then of course you can search electronically for information like you could never do before and all websites are improving to help people with their estate planning including the NAEPC website right we're updating our website

As we speak, things are always changing and in just about everything. People don't like change, but change happens. And so everyone needs to revisit their estate plan from time to time, even if they've done it and something out there changes that they know about. Perhaps it makes sense to go see their advisors in estate planning to to double check on their, their plan.

Adam Zuckerman 20:18

As the trends are changing, as we're encouraging people to focus on working with service providers that promote collaboration. That means that those individuals will likely have a specialty or an expertise that they're helping out with as part of that ecosystem of collaboration. Is there a way for people to find a roadmap that says this is the collaboration point that I need here? So I have my CPA checkmark, an attorney checkmark, I have this checkmark, or is it so unique for the individual that it's a more holistic approach of make sure that everybody that you work with is a collaborative individual in the process.

Larry Macklin 20:56

Yeah, that's a great question. I need to give that some thought. How do we find a specific estate planner that is going to focus on the areas of my interest? And hopefully, a client goes to an estate planner and they express their goals and the planner understands that it's beyond their scope, that they'll just let the client know that this is beyond the scope.

And if they collaborate, it may just come out in the collaboration. And they may need to go see someone else. know that early on in my career, helping out a client who needed, based on their goals, they needed some specific work that the attorney who had done their general work should probably have been able to do for them. And they asked me, they go, I said, I think this attorney should be able to do because they have a certain designation within the in the estate planning field. So attorneys can specialize, right? And that attorney said to me, called me up and he said, he said, Larry, the truth is I have not done this before. It was something sort of new within the field. And so we helped that client find another attorney that could help them within the collaborative process that knew how to do that. So there's, you know, every hopefully professionals know their limitations.

And when they find out the goals, they either can help refer the client to someone who can specifically help them with what they need. I hate to say that some professionals may try to go beyond their scope. Hopefully they are not committing any kind of malpractice and they're providing good service for their clients. But again, if they go through the collaborative process, I think they will ultimately end up giving the client the right level of service.

Hopefully so. Now everybody starts out at some point in their career just like you started out, know, several decades ago as mentioned. What's some of the advice that you have to give to new professionals that are entering the field? I would say, you know, if you want to be an estate planner, you need to gain knowledge. You need to gain a lot of knowledge. I was absorbing knowledge so much in the early part of my career.

joining organizations like the local estate planning council. Get involved in the local estate planning council and you learn so much through the networking that you do with other professionals, the collaboration process that you do with other professionals, and just the education that the council will provide and the educational additional education that NAPA can provide for that council member. Another great idea would be to find a mentor who is, you know, more well -versed.

been involved in the profession for longer, that mentor will hopefully provide good guidance on how to, again, improve the knowledge that you have to effectively provide advice to a client. I think those two things, can join organizations like in a local estate planning council and find a mentor, I think would be two great things to do as a young professional.

Adam Zuckerman 23:49

All right, now future goals, President -elect, you have the ability to steer and shape and direct the organization during your term. What are some of the initiatives that you really want to double down on? Is there anything new that the organization hasn't done in the past that you hope to implement?

Larry Macklin 24:03

Well, the truth is the organization is just not as well known as it needs to be among the profession. So our goal is to market NAPAC a little bit better so people understand what's available to them because again, especially for a young professional, if they want education, we provide tremendous amounts of resources. And so just knowing that they're available is really the important thing. So we need to market and we need to market better. We're working on that. All right. We also will help. One of the really big initiatives is also going to be to make sure that professionals know that they can become an accredited estate planner and getting the knowledge about specialization and being an AEP.

for the professionals out there better as well. It's just not as well known as it needs to be, again, among professionals and among the public. So we need to both provide more knowledge in that area. For the estate planning service providers and professionals that are listening, if they're interested in pursuing one of those designations, how long does the process take? How much does it take? What should they know? Right. So go to the NAEPC website, NAEPC.org, and it's a lot of information about

The specializations, especially the accredited estate planner designation for everyone, every estate planner, and the EPLLS, the estate planning law specialist for attorneys. The requirements, first, you do need to be a member of a local estate planning council or an affiliated local estate planning council.

And you need to have a certain credential already. You need to be an attorney, a CPA, a CLU, a CFP, a CHFC, a CPWA, a CFA, many other organizations. You have to have one of those designations already to show that you have mastered a certain level of knowledge in that area and then take that designation and then say, okay, but I have been working in estate planning for a period of years.

I have a certain amount of experience in estate planning and with that experience, I can take my designation, my experience, and become an accredited estate planner. I need at least five years of experience in the estate planning field. If I do that, if I have five years, I can then demonstrate some expertise by taking some graduate level courses in estate planning, some offered by the American college or other courses. If I have 15 years of experience, I don't need to show

I don't need to take those graduate courses. That's 15 years of experience in estate planning. And there's no additional test that needs to be done, right? It's an experience designation for people who already have taken a test to be some other type of professional, like an attorney, CPA, et cetera, as I mentioned. And so with that experience level and that degree, they can then take that and become an accredited estate planner. They have to be part of a local estate planning council. They have to abide by a certain

a list of ethics and do some continuing education after that, but that's the major hurdle is that experience level.

Adam Zuckerman 27:10

One more time for the listeners, if they want to get in contact with you or find NAEPC, where do they go online?

Larry Macklin 27:15

Okay, so the website is naepc.org, NAEPC.org, and they can get tremendous amounts of information on that website. And you'll see the list of the board of directors, the officers, past presidents, and everything else that we do is really focused on in that website.

Adam Zuckerman 27:36

All right, Larry, thank you so much for your time. We enjoyed the conversation and that wraps up another Bury to Work podcast episode where you feature tips and stories from industry professionals who specialize in making estate planning end of life tasks and estate transitions, more manageable. you enjoyed the podcast as usual, please consider leaving us a review, follow us on social media, or visit us at the website, buriedinwork.com. And don't forget, podcast listeners can save 10 % off Buried in Work's estate preparation package and games with the code B -I -W Podcast.

Adam Zuckerman 28:02

Larry, thanks again for sharing.

Larry Macklin 28:04

It's been a pleasure. It's been great to get this information out, Adam. Thank you for helping me do that. I appreciate it.

Podcast Host 28:09

Thanks for listening to another episode of the Buried in Work podcast. Remember, you can save 10 % on our estate preparation package and games with code podcast10 at buriedinwork.com.

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