Vanilla Attorney Network

The latest addition to our network is a nationwide law firm: the Will and Trust Center. The Will and Trust Center is a division of Creative Planning Legal, an independent law firm with over 100 attorneys and legal professionals specializing in estate planning and administration services for advised clients across wealth levels. As an independent law firm, the Will and Trust Center is bound by strict legal and ethical requirements to maintain client confidentiality.

We chose to partner with the Will and Trust Center because they are extremely advisor-friendly and have a history of supporting multiple RIAs. They welcome advisor participation in attorney-client meetings and communication with client consent.

The firm offers a full and comprehensive range of legal services including estate planning, irrevocable trusts, deed preparation, funding assistance, LLC creation, and settlement and administration services in all 50 states. Half hour and one-hour consultations are also available to Vanilla users to answer general estate planning questions and concerns.

The Vanilla Attorney Network enhances the document creation experience, allowing advisors to facilitate comprehensive estate planning for their clients. Vanilla combines the scalability of automatically generated estate plans with individualized legal expertise accessible across the country to expand advisors’ estate advisory tools. Benefits to advisors include:

• Providing Post-Doc Creation Legal Needs. Engaging an attorney can complement use of Vanilla Document Builder and completion of an estate plan by providing an integrated solution for deed preparation, funding of trusts for probate avoidance, or implementation of additional tax planning strategies to irrevocable trusts. As clients navigate through life’s changes, the network can assist with legal needs of clients after they’ve created their estate plan to ensure adaptability and consistency of valuable legal guidance.
• Ensuring Solutions for All Asset Levels. Vanilla Document Builder estate plans cover the needs of most mass affluent to high net worth clientele for their foundational planning. The network can serve the entirety of the wealth spectrum.
• Facilitating Collaborative Legal Guidance. The network covers all 50 states plus D.C. and provides access to elite estate planning attorneys servicing the nation’s most complex legal matters. By covering the range of needs from basic to complex, the network bolsters Vanilla’s collaborative approach combining the efficiency and scalability of self-guided software with the reliability of expert oversight.

Attorneys in the Vanilla network can create foundational documents such as wills, trusts, healthcare directives, power of attorneys and living wills, as well as funding documentation needed for transfer of real estate or business interests. The attorneys can also create more advanced structures such as ILITs, GRATs, SLATs, IDGTs, and Dynasty Trusts, as well as documents required for estate settlement or administration.

Yes, the attorneys in the network can provide legal services to clients in a wide range of wealth levels, including high net worth (HNW) and ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) clients. Clients will be connected with state-specific attorneys and tax planning specialists who can address complex and advanced strategies around legal and financial matters, including intricate trust structures, wealth transfer strategies, and estate tax optimization.

With the addition of the Will and Trust Center, many of the packages and document types that the Vanilla Attorney Network provides are offered at fixed fees depending on the client’s need and geographic location. All pricing can be found in the Vanilla Knowledge Base.

Yes. When a client agrees to involve their financial advisor in the estate planning process, the attorneys and legal professionals at the Will and Trust Center facilitate seamless collaboration, engaging the advisor throughout the process. This ensures an integrated and holistic approach that helps to align the estate plan with financial considerations.