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Borrowing from Corey B..... 

July 22, 2022 Our firm is an estate planning and probate law firm (with some business planning and tax planning work thrown in as well), so we are accustomed to dealing with death. Unfortunately, this past week was not normal – the horrible and senseless killing of Rev. Dr. Autura Eason-Williams, the District Superintendent of the Metro Conference of the United Methodist Church, was devastating to so many of us. In simple terms, it hurt. For those of you who are not aware, I have been practicing law for 36 years, but am pursuing a Masters of Divinity degree at the present time. While I will be continuing to practice law until I breathe my last breath, I hope to become a United Methodist pastor by the time I am 70 years of age, and if I do, Autura was likely going to be my boss. Last week, I had scheduled a Zoom conference with her for yesterday, to discuss the process of my ordination and assimilation within the church as a future clergy member. That opportunity was taken away by some young men who made the judgment call that a used car was more valuable than a life. I will greatly miss the opportunity of getting to know her better, and growing under her guidance. It seems too simple to say at this point, but life is short, and we need to cherish each day we have. Autura’s untimely death reminds us that we need to embrace our passions: including family, friends, special moments and special activities, which for me, include Notre Dame football, playing the tuba, and, just every once in a while, a Fox Ridge Special pizza. One of my life lessons from walking the Camino de Santiago five years ago was learning to live in the moment. From this horrible event of losing a great person in our community, let us walk away from this with a commitment to live in, and to celebrate each moment. We will return to estate planning 101 next week. Pat

The Red Stapler: for those who remember the Movie, “Office Space,” here we celebrate Milton’s red stapler. July 15, 2022 STUFF Whether we utilize a Will as our client’s primary wealth transfer device, or we utilize a Trust, at some point we have to deal with how our client is going to transfer their “stuff.” As you could probably guess, “Stuff” is a technical legal term for your tangible personal property, e.g., the stuff in your house, including furniture, paintings, china, etc. After you are gone, it seems that the most likely “fight” among your surviving family members will be over your stuff – stuff that may mean a lot to you or stuff that may mean very little to you. There are a hundred different methods of dividing up your stuff among loved ones. Certainly, soliciting wishes from loved ones and based upon those conversations documenting the list of who gets what within your estate plan is helpful. Post-it notes on the bottom of furniture items or backs of paintings may be a good, but not great approach (the notes can easily be removed and substituted). Another approach we have seen used is to provide family members with “Monopoly money” to shop with in acquiring items at a family auction after your passing. In the planning process, however, we recommend our clients make a listing of significant items (as an example, one of my clients owns a baseball signed and given to him by Ted Williams) and designating the beneficiary. We include a tab for that listing in their estate planning notebook, which includes all of our clients’ original estate planning documents. Our experience is that such a listing declares our clients’ final intent, and that seems to be the best way of avoiding conflict between or among their beneficiaries. We make no guarantees, however – we once represented a client who fought his brother to the Supreme Court of Tennessee over quilts and photographs. If you would like some guidance in how best to try to solve these problems, please give us a call. We will do our best to guide you to try to avoid the dissonance of family dysfunction involving your stuff. But we always encourage you to remember, stuff is only stuff. Keep cool during these tough and toasty summer months, and always remember that college football is just around the corner! Pat

For some of you, being a grandparent is “old hat”. Unfortunately, I have missed much of the last two years of grandparenting due to Covid. I look forward to spending as much time as possible spoiling my two granddaughters! As we begin to take a look at some of the interesting estate planning issues, I thought it would be good to start with a very simple question, “Who needs a Will?” While a popular answer might be “everyone,” I am not quite so sure about that. Let’s begin our exploration of estate planning questions with what is a Will and why would someone need a Will, before addressing the answer to our first, simple question. A Will is an instruction letter to a Court which states how the author of the Will wants her or his affairs resolved after her or his death. It is NOT a way of avoiding probate – it merely instructs a Court how to ensure the author’s direction on asset distribution and other decisions like who the guardian of one’s children should be. So given that, why would someone need a Will? Well, certainly to direct asset distribution (if different from the distribution provisions under Tennessee’s intestacy laws, i.e., how property passes under the law if you don’t have a Will) or if you have minor children where you need to name a Guardian (the person with whom the child will reside until age 18). One last thing: if you have assets which are either in joint name or have a beneficiary attached to the asset (like life insurance or an IRA), then a Will is irrelevant to the direction of where assets pass upon your death. In card lingo (and not political lingo): Beneficiary designation and joint ownership trumps Wills, not the other way around. Thus, if you don’t have minor children, and if all of your assets are either in joint name or have a beneficiary, you may not need a Will! I hope everyone’s summer is going well. We will keep blogging, but please send us your ideas on topics to address. Pat

On May 23, 2022, my new best friend, Coach Marcus Freeman, Head Football Coach at the University of Notre Dame, came to Memphis to visit me and give me a few pointers. Thanks, Coach. A NEW DAY - A NEW ERA June 28, 2022 It has been six months since we restarted our law firm under the name, MASON LAW, PC. If you are not aware, we are presently working in Executive Suites space at the Colonnade Building next to International Paper, and we are continuing to look for permanent space. MASON LAW, PC, continues to practice in the areas of estate planning, probate and trust administration, estate-related litigation, and business planning and corporate transactions, which may sound similar to what we were doing before, but without the income tax preparation work. New Team . For those not aware, we have added Jill Westbrook as our Office Manager and Marcia Kisner as our probate and estate planning paralegal. Jill has been working with our legal team for over a year and is doing great work. Marcia has served as a probate paralegal for many years, and she is a great fit for our “First, we listen,” team and our shepherding philosophy. Steve Ebbers, an associate attorney in our firm, continues to practice law with us focusing his practice in the area of estate-related litigation and contested conservatorships. Firm Vision . We continue to be a law firm which seeks to shepherd our clients in the practice areas surrounding estates, assisting our client’s families with making that transition from life to death as simple as possible, hopefully while minimizing family conflict. Having just celebrated my 65 th birthday, some may ask the question, “How much longer will you be doing this, old man?” First, let me be clear: I plan on practicing law until I breathe my last, which, God willing, will be many years from now. Some of you may have heard the rumor that I went back to school – a rumor I will confirm. I am one-third of the way through a Masters of Divinity program at Memphis Theological Seminary. My goal is Ordination before reaching age 70 (which is 5 years from now). The program is very enriching and I continue to be challenged in each and every class. But, as I mentioned above, I intend to continue practicing law the rest of my life. I love practicing law too much to give up. Invitation . Please feel free to stop by our offices on the 4 th floor of the Colonnade Building , whether you need legal help or not. We would love to visit with you and catch up. Our intention is to provide regular Blog posts with updates on our firm and addressing more complex estate planning issues, such as the selecting of successor fiduciaries, and making distributions to multiple children who have different levels of needs. We hope these posts will help you think a bit differently about your ultimate beneficiaries.