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The Practical Planner: Daily Summaries Delivered
by wealth.com
Let's reimagine estate planning together. We'll explore ways for advisors to better serve existing clients and grow your business. Unlike other shows that skim the surface of easily Googled topics, hosts Thomas Kopelman and Anne Rhodes provide takeaways that advisors can use to meet your clients wherever they are in the estate planning process. What’s the difference between a will and a trust? What is an estate plan, and why do you need one? What are the biggest estate planning mistakes? The Practical Planner details everything advisors need for effective estate planning. We cover everything from the basics (defining terms like beneficiary, trustee, and family trust, breaking down estate tax 101) to the more complex (such as compliance for advisors, best practices with crypto, and charitable strategies). The Practical Planner is a production of wealth.com. Wealth.com is the #1 Estate Planning Solution built for advisors. Our mission is to modernize estate planning through innovative technology. Thomas Kopelman is the Head of Community at wealth.com, and was named as a Top 100 Advisor by Investopedia in 2022 and 2023, 2023 Young Advisor to Watch, and Top 23 Millennial Financial Advisor by Business Insider. Anne Rhodes is the Chief Legal Officer at wealth.com. Prior to her current role, she was an estate planning attorney first at McDermott Will & Emery (New York), then at Perkins Coie (San Francisco).
Latest Episodes
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- 1 weeks ago20 min
Celebrity Estate Plan Horror Stories, From Prince to Heath Ledger
Celebrities have managers, agents, and advisors around them, yet many still leave estate plans that fail their families. Thomas Kopelman is joined by Lisa Hendrix Weigel, Sr. Counsel, Strategic Growth at Wealth.com, to walk through the most instructive cases. Whitney Houston and Heath Ledger signed wills before their children were born and never updated them. Prince died without a will, and his estate spent years in litigation. James Gandolfini and Philip Seymour Hoffman had wills with little estate tax planning behind them. From testamentary trusts that still go through probate to QTIP planning, this episode shows advisors why most horror stories start with skipping the basics.
- 3 weeks ago16 min
How to Fix a Mistake in a Trust
Even a small mistake in a trust can change where the assets go. Thomas Kopelman and Anne Rhodes walk through the most common errors, from a misspelled beneficiary name to a section reference that points nowhere. Anne explains how tracing the flow of assets through a plan can catch them. Then they cover how to fix a mistake: an amendment for a revocable trust, or beneficiaries agreeing to change an irrevocable one. They also explain splitting a pot trust, trust protectors, decanting, and when only a court can fix it. Whether a trust is revocable or irrevocable, this episode shows advisors that clients are rarely stuck with a document that is wrong.
- Sep 28, 202619 min
How to Remove or Replace a Trustee
Knowing how to remove or replace a trustee comes down to what the trust document allows. Thomas Kopelman and Anne Rhodes cover why clients change trustees, from aging relatives to a corporate trustee that no longer fits. Then the mechanisms: a simple amendment to a revocable trust, trustee appointer and trust protector roles, and the court petition older documents leave as the only route. They also explain the release of liability a departing corporate trustee may ask a client to sign. And they cover when moving trusteeship out of California can reduce a trust's state income tax. Whether a trust is revocable or irrevocable, this episode shows advisors where to look and why clients are rarely as stuck as they think.
- Sep 1, 202622 min
Ultra High Net Worth Estate Planning: The Top 5 Strategies
Giving assets away without giving up access is the puzzle at the center of most ultra-high-net-worth planning. Thomas Kopelman and Lisa Weigel are joined by Chris Nason, head of private wealth at Wealth.com, to walk through the tools that solve it: spousal lifetime access trusts and the surprisingly consequential question of how a document defines "spouse," dynasty trusts in South Dakota and other perpetuity-friendly states, GRATs, and installment sales to grantor trusts. They also cover the divorce and death risks that can lock a grantor out of a SLAT, and how life insurance backstops them. Whether a client has ten million or a hundred, this episode maps which strategies fit and what each one actually costs.
- Aug 20, 202628 min
International Estate Planning Strategies
A green card makes someone a spouse in every way but one: the unlimited marital deduction. Thomas Kopelman and Lisa Weigel are joined by Chris Nason, head of private wealth at Wealth.com and a longtime international estate planning attorney, to unpack the cross-border problems hiding inside ordinary American plans — the non-citizen spouse who needs a QDOT, the child whose move abroad quietly converts a domestic trust, and the unreported foreign account that can cost half its value in a single year. They also cover expatriation, the exit tax, and who counts as a covered expatriate. Whether or not a client lives abroad, this episode shows advisors where the tripwires sit and when to call a specialist.
- Aug 5, 202625 min
Real Estate: To Be or Not to Be, in an LLC
Thomas Kopelman, Anne Rhodes, and Lisa Weigel dig into one of the most common real estate questions advisors hear: should a client hold a rental, second home, or even a primary residence inside an LLC? The answer, they argue, is never reflexive — it depends on weighing liability protection against state estate taxes, property-tax reassessment, income-tax treatment, and lost personal exemptions. Along the way they cover piercing the corporate veil, how to size and separate LLCs, the domicile traps of converting real property into an intangible interest, and privacy tools like land trusts and nominee trusts. From entity structure to a well-built umbrella policy, this episode helps advisors model the trade-offs and avoid one-size-fits-all advice.
- Jul 17, 202621 min
How to Create Stickiness as an Advisor, for the Post-Death of Clients
Being named in the trust feels like job security — until you realize it can be undone with a signature. In this episode, Thomas Kopelman, Anne Rhodes, and Lisa Weigel break down why advisors who chase trustee or "Investment Advisor" titles to lock in assets often take on fiduciary burdens and conflicts without the retention they expected. They unpack how modern trust codes split the trustee role, why self-dealing and prudent-investor rules complicate serving the trust, and where lasting stickiness actually comes from: the spouse, the beneficiaries, and the trustee who can choose to keep you on. From conflict traps to flexible trust design, this is a candid look at earning the next generation's business before the transfer happens.
- Jul 9, 202642 min
A Deep Dive into Jump's Annual Research Report
Liam Hanlon of Jump joins Thomas Kopelman and Anne Rhodes for a data-driven look at what AI is really revealing about advisor–client conversations. Drawing on Jump's research across thousands of advisor meetings, they explore how note-takers have evolved from simple time-savers into a coaching tool — surfacing talk-time ratios, client sentiment trends, question quality, and which planning topics advisors raise versus their clients. From the "core four" planning conversations to why estate planning so often surfaces only after a loss, the discussion reframes AI as a command center that makes advisors more human, not less. Whether you're evaluating note-taking tools or sharpening your own client conversations, this episode shows how to turn meeting data into a genuine edge.
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About The Practical Planner
Let's reimagine estate planning together. We'll explore ways for advisors to better serve existing clients and grow your business. Unlike other shows that skim the surface of easily Googled topics, hosts Thomas Kopelman and Anne Rhodes provide takeaways that advisors can use to meet your clients wherever they are in the estate planning process. What’s the difference between a will and a trust? What is an estate plan, and why do you need one? What are the biggest estate planning mistakes? The Practical Planner details everything advisors need for effective estate planning. We cover everything from the basics (defining terms like beneficiary, trustee, and family trust, breaking down estate tax 101) to the more complex (such as compliance for advisors, best practices with crypto, and charitable strategies). The Practical Planner is a production of wealth.com. Wealth.com is the #1 Estate Planning Solution built for advisors. Our mission is to modernize estate planning through innovative technology. Thomas Kopelman is the Head of Community at wealth.com, and was named as a Top 100 Advisor by Investopedia in 2022 and 2023, 2023 Young Advisor to Watch, and Top 23 Millennial Financial Advisor by Business Insider. Anne Rhodes is the Chief Legal Officer at wealth.com. Prior to her current role, she was an estate planning attorney first at McDermott Will & Emery (New York), then at Perkins Coie (San Francisco).
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