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Wills and estates space ‘is constantly evolving’
In recent years, the wills and estates space has shifted from a sub-category of law to a specialist discipline area — something which this legal expert said brings a range of challenges and new opportunities for both lawyers and clients.
Lauren Croft
Vik Sundar is the managing director and founder of Clear Law — and winner of the wills and estates category at the recent Partner of the Year Awards.
Winning a Partner of the Year award has been “one of the highlights” of Mr Sundar’s career to date, he said, particularly as 2022 is the first year the awards have had a wills and estates category.
“Having spent over nine years writing text books in the area of wills and advanced estate planning and having left a much larger multi practice firm four years ago, the award validates the decision to go out on my own to create a truly specialist wills and estates and to do things differently to the bigger firms,” he said.
“For other lawyers who are considering putting themselves forward for the next Partner of the Year Awards, I would certainly recommend that they give it a go. The process for myself has been rewarding in not only reflecting on the past year and the journey to get where I am now, but the recognition from my peers and the industry has been a great way of promoting my firm and practice.”
The wills and estates space has undergone quite a shift over the last few years, which has meant that a number of new issues and challenges have arisen.
“Over the past few years, we have seen a shift from it being an area in which generalist suburban lawyers practice in, to being treated as its own specialist discipline of law which has seen a number of specialist firms like my own flourish.
“As lawyers specialising in the area require a strong foundation in property, family law, trust law, tax and superannuation, my recommendation to lawyers seeking to establish themselves as experts in the area is to read a lot of cases, and commentary in the area in order to ensure that they are on top of the latest issues and strategies. It is an area that is constantly evolving and therefore requires a desire to be constantly learning,” Mr Sundar added.
“Another challenge for wills and estates lawyers is that whilst COVID and electronic witnessing fast tracked years of development in the way in which wills and estates practices are run, as an area of law, it is still quite outdated. We still don’t have permanent electronic witnessing in all jurisdictions, we still have to rely on physical documents and there is still no national wills register.”
Therefore, wills and estate practices can benefit greatly from the use of technology for automation of advice and document generation in their practices — which has allowed Mr Sundar to build a “scalable national practice” and is a key trend to look out for within the space.
“With more and more clients now holding digital assets and cryptocurrency, estate plans for clients are now requiring consideration of these specific assets and how they pass on death, and bespoke strategies in order to deal with them,” Mr Sundar said.
“I would strongly recommend that lawyers practising in the area stay on top of these issues in order to ensure that they are properly dealing with these assets when advising clients.”
In addition to technology and digital assets, lawyers working in this space can best serve their clients by looking at things from “both a legal and personal point of view”, according to Mr Sundar.
“What we often forget as practitioners is that when we are discussing estate planning with clients, we are asking them to confront their mortality and decide where they want their assets to go when they pass away. This often forces them to discuss their biggest fears of what will happen when they pass away: Will their spouse have enough money to live a comfortable life? Will their children be able to manage their inheritance? Who will care for their disabled beneficiary? What will happen if someone contests their estate?” he said.
“Lawyers can best serve their clients by not only being highly skilled in the area and being able to develop solutions to meet their client’s needs, but being kind, compassionate and empathetic to their clients.”
Lauren Croft
Lauren is a journalist at Lawyers Weekly and graduated with a Bachelor of Journalism from Macleay College. Prior to joining Lawyers Weekly, she worked as a trade journalist for media and travel industry publications and Travel Weekly. Originally born in England, Lauren enjoys trying new bars and restaurants, attending music festivals and travelling. She is also a keen snowboarder and pre-pandemic, spent a season living in a French ski resort.
