0:00:00.6 Vickie Brett: Welcome to the Inclusive Education Project. I'm Vickie Brett.

0:00:10.1 Amanda Selogie: I'm Amanda Selogie. We're two civil rights lawyers on a mission to change the conversation about education, civil rights, and modern activism.

0:00:20.7 VB: Each week we're gonna explore new topics, which are going to educate and empower others.

0:00:25.5 AS: And give them a platform to enact change in education and level the playing field. Welcome back friends.

0:00:34.5 VB: Hi listeners. We hope you guys are hanging in there with this end of the year push or end of the school year, I should say.

0:00:43.1 AS: Yeah. So we're pivoting a little bit today. Obviously we mostly talk about education here, but we also wanna talk about all aspects of life for children living with disabilities, and making sure that families and people who are working with these families have all the resources and tools to advise families on how to kind of have a well-rounded toolkit for how to support their kids. And one of those things we've talked about in the past is we've talked about conservatorships and special needs trust. And so today we're gonna dive a little bit deeper into the financial side of raising a child with a disability. And so, James, thank you so much for being on the podcast.

0:01:20.0 James: Thank you so much for having me, Amanda and Vickie.

0:01:22.6 VB: So James, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background?

0:01:27.5 James: Sure. So I am a CPA and state attorney and a writer. I've had nine bestselling books in the financial world and 36 appearances in the Wall Street Journal. And I don't say that to brag, but I just want people to know right off the top, this is not gonna be BS. And they're gonna get some great information. So anyway, my specialty, if you are... Is helping parents or people with IRAs and retirement plans. Then our daughter developed dysautonomia, which is a malfunction of the autonomic nervous system, which effectively makes her unable to work. So my wife and I were on track for a comfortable retirement for us, and some kind of inheritance for our daughter. But now we not only have the issue of providing for us and our daughter for the rest of her life, I'm sorry, the rest of our lives, but also the rest of her life. And that became our biggest worry. And even though I have a successful practice, it's not easy to accumulate enough money to not only provide for yourself, your spouse, your child during your life, but in our case, she could survive us by 40 or 50 years, not be able to work.

0:02:42.0 VB: Exactly.

0:02:42.7 James: So how do we provide for her? And the obvious thing, well, okay, work longer, save more, spend less, life insurance and there's nothing wrong with any of those. I knew that there was something better, and I didn't do this with the idea I was gonna try to save the world and tell everybody about, I was just worried, okay, how am I gonna provide for my daughter? And then my background specifically with IRAs and retirement plans and the secure act of Roth IRA conversions was just perfect to help my daughter. So we put together a plan and as a result of the plan, if you compare... If we did nothing and not even including government benefits, If we did nothing, using reasonable projections, our daughter runs out of money. With our plan our daughter will have $1.9 million in today's dollars. And this isn't from insurance, this isn't some trick investment.

0:03:34.2 VB: Oh, wow.

0:03:35.8 James: It's basically a massive transfer from Uncle Sam to our daughter. And if you included government benefits, SSDI in our case or SSI then the transfer becomes much, much greater. So now we have the solution, the anxiety level for my wife and I... We're still anxious about some of the non-financial aspects of her life.

0:04:00.8 AS: Yeah.

0:04:01.3 VB: Of course.

0:04:01.7 James: Like she could have a billion dollars, she's still gonna have problems.

0:04:05.7 VB: Right? Right.

0:04:06.5 James: But let's say I wanted to focus on the area of where I'm an expert. I'm not a social worker, I'm a financial guy. So our anxiety level went way down. And interestingly enough, after I really informed her what we were doing, and I was more specific, and she's a very bright girl, and she would do advanced calculus, physics problem in a nanosecond. She understands numbers. She realized, oh, I'm gonna be okay financially for the rest of my life. We didn't talk about it before, but that was a huge worry for her. And her and probably most people with some kind of disability or for that matter, almost anybody if you can reduce anxiety, you're very likely to improve the physical function and.

0:04:53.8 VB: Oh, absolutely. And this is a problem that a lot of our clients face. Right. And we have some of the tools to kind of navigate from childhood to early adulthood in that, as Amanda said, we do do limited conservatorships and special needs trust, but the financial aspect, I mean, we have no clue. Right. We're just like anybody else where we defer to the experts like yourself. And that's why we were really excited to have you on because this is something that you yourself have gone through and are in and with your expertise, like you were saying, it really gave you the tools to kind of put a plan together. And then what we appreciate is you sharing that information and wanting to distribute it to parents that find themselves in similar situation as you.

0:05:40.1 James: Well, that's kind of become my life mission. I'm 66 years old. I've had a very good career in financial services. As an estate attorney and as a financial advisor and a CPA, but very frankly, most of my clients have net worths of a million dollars or more. So I'm basically helping middle class, upper middle class folks who are already going to be okay, even without my help to do better, pass more money on to their kids. But let's just say for discussion sake that I have a client, the people that I've worked for for 35 years and I screw it up, or I don't get the best result and their kid ends up with say, a $500,000 less than if I had done everything right, all the planning, the Roth conversion, all the strategies. That's a bad thing. But if you have a child with a disability and the attorney or the advisor, or you screw up and your kid ends up with $500,000 less than they would have otherwise, and they can't work, that is a financial tragedy. So I am kind of on a mission to make sure that parents with a child with a disability can optimize what they do have. And again, I'm not trying to sell life insurance. In fact, there's a small section on life insurance, but that's not the crux of my message.

0:07:05.0 VB: So what is it that you say to people when they come to you and they are in that situation, right? That we find a lot of our clients where they want to plan. Where do you have kind of like in mind, like the top three things that you would say to them?

0:07:20.7 James: Well let's do talk about the top three. Because even though there's a lot of sub variations within the three, I would say that the three basic components of the plan that I've developed apply to most... Any parent with a child with a disability, whether they're broke or whether they have $10 million. So why don't we go through them? Because I think that they are mission critical. Number one, the most important thing, and I tell people if you haven't done this, it's too early to see me. Number one is getting a child qualified for government benefits in the form of SSI or SSDI. Debbie McFadden, who was the expert in this area, she was the commissioner of disabilities under HW Bush. She had 400 attorneys under her. How would you like to make 400 attorneys?

0:08:09.3 AS: Wow Yeah.

0:08:09.7 VB: No, thank you. No, thank you.

0:08:14.0 James: But anyway, she did get, obviously with a lot of help, the Disabilities Act of 1990 passed. So her big thing is you... And typically if a client has for SSI, that's really a poverty program, and if the child is less than 18 years old, they're going to include the income and the resources of the parent. So a lot of parents make too much money, or they have too many assets in order to qualify for their child until the child is 18. So she's very, very big on I think one month after the child turns 18, if that child qualifies and there's... And that... Talk about that for a long time, if the child potentially qualifies for SSI or in some cases SSDI, and we don't have time to go into the distinctions, it's mission critical to do that. Most applications are denied and the appeals process is expensive and there's a high denial rate for the appeals process.

0:09:14.4 James: You wanna get that done right in a limited time I'll just say the one thing where people botch it, that she fights all the time, it is natural for a parent to be optimistic about how their child will do. And when they're telling the world, they're trying to put things in a positive light. And you want exact opposite. You want to tell the people at the Social Security Administration all the things your child can't do. And sometimes the child themselves will resist this. So I've had that multiple times, particularly when the child is older, maybe in their 20s or 30s because they think they're gonna be okay. And this is what I would say, I would say if you have a disability or a parent who's trying to provide for a child with a disability, you have a very tough road, even if you do everything right to provide for that child. So this is no time to brag. You want to tell that Social Security administration all the problems that your child has.

0:10:11.9 AS: Absolutely yes.

0:10:14.8 James: So, as an example, Debbie McFadden's daughter is an above the knee amputee, but she is also one of the top amputee rock climbers in the country, maybe.

0:10:21.8 AS: Wow.

0:10:26.1 James: So this woman can get up a flight of steps. Okay when she did the application, she didn't say, oh, by the way, she can just hop up the steps better than you or I could walk up. [0:10:37.2] ____ She can't go up a flight of steps the way a normal person would go up steps.

0:10:41.3 AS: Well, we talk about that with families often who try to apply for IHSS as well, where families put in so many like accommodations in their home from locking drawers with knives to putting baby gates on. And we do so many things to secure our child's safety. But what they need to be knowing is what can they do or what can't they do without all these accommodations, without all of the supports? Because it is important to know this is different than a typical child or a typical person.

0:11:13.8 James: And you have to typically get corroboration from doctors, maybe from teachers, maybe from social workers, maybe from caregivers to prove it's a... Even though interestingly you don't have to be an attorney to do this work. And some people they like to pack their own parachute, they can do it themselves. But that's the first thing. Mission critical. Debbie calls it the golden ticket. You qualify for Medicare, you qualify for special equipment, you get into the estate planning aspect of it often tuition, vocational rehabilitation. There's a lot that you can do. So that's number one. Alright. And I'm going to give an offer for a free book. Debbie does a great job of explaining that in the book. So that's step number one. Step number two, which is more in your area is get your estate planning done and get it done appropriately.

0:12:09.5 James: I suspect that you've already spoken about the importance of special needs trust.

0:12:15.2 VB: Yes.

0:12:15.8 James: And how the special needs trust will protect the child and protect the child's government benefit.

0:12:24.0 VB: Yes.

0:12:24.8 James: Alright. Now here's, let's say one of the downsides of the special needs trust. First you have to qualify for a government benefit, whether it's SSI or SSDI or something else. And sometimes we just don't know how our child is going to do. Maybe a child's on the spectrum of autism or ADHD or a brain injury and we're not sure how that child is going to be at the time of our death. And let's do two examples. One, let's say that we're drafting at a time that we just don't know. And example number one is we're really sure that the child isn't gonna qualify for benefits.

0:13:05.1 James: Well then we don't wanna do a special needs trust because a special needs trust is much more restrictive than, let's just say a regular protection trust. So for that, if it's really obvious that kid is never gonna get government benefits, then it's pretty obvious that we won't do a special needs trust. We'll do let's say more or less a spend thrift or a protective trust, which a lot of estate attorneys are very familiar with. But let's say that we have something that's very clear. The child's in a wheelchair, the child can't speak. They're blind whatever it is. Well then we do the special needs trust. Alright And I suspect that your office has done those many times, and I always say, go to a specialist, don't go to Joe Shmoe estate attorney. Even if they're good. I mean our [0:13:53.3] ____ did 3000 wills and trusts and we think that we know this stuff pretty well.

0:13:58.7 VB: Yeah.

0:14:01.1 AS: Absolutely.

0:14:01.0 James: But not the disability stuff.

0:14:01.1 VB: Right. It's its own thing. Yeah.

0:14:04.0 James: We referred out on a lot of times, just like you guys, firms that do that work can help with auxiliary services. So for example, Julia Steinberger has social workers on her staff.

0:14:19.5 VB: Oh wow.

0:14:19.6 James: Even though I had this law firm, I didn't do it in our law firm. I had Julia do it. And guess what? Her social workers were very helpful with insurance and a bunch of things that most lawyers have no clue about. And she was much better with things like guardianship provisions and conservatorships and things that, you know. Alright, so you guys know that better than I do, but I'm gonna add one little wrinkle that I hope that you're gonna like. So I said, what happens if you know your kid's gonna get benefits? What happens if you know that your kid isn't? What if you don't know? What if your kid's getting benefits now, but maybe they have dyslexia and the hope is after some training they'll be able to read well enough to get a job. Now you're stuck in this inappropriate trust or say a kid doesn't have benefits, maybe they have a brain injury, and it looks like... We're hopeful they're gonna work, but it turns out that they can't. So what do you do when you're drafting the documents for these kids or if you're a parent and you're going to an estate attorney, what do you tell the estate attorney?

0:15:23.5 James: Oh, you draft a special needs or draft a more traditional protective trust. There's something called a toggle trust. And the way a toggle trust works is you basically... It's basically kind of two trusts in one. You have the traditional protection trust, you have the special needs trust, and then the trustee, not now, but at the time of your death gets [0:15:46.1] ____ to either special needs trust or protective trust. And.

0:15:52.5 AS: Interesting.

0:15:53.8 James: You can even go further, but you need a... This gets a little bit more complicated. It's possible that you could even, in some circumstances, depending on states, have additional switches, maybe 20 years after you're gone, if the child's condition changes again.

0:16:10.2 AS: Let me ask if there's state specific laws on these toggle trusts, because I know with special needs trust in California, we have to fund them right away. We can't fund them later. So how do you get around that? It sounds like you're not funding them right away. So how do you get around that?

0:16:26.5 James: Well, no, you might be funding them very soon after death. I'm not saying the next day, but no, this isn't something that you sit around for, you go one way or the other in the short run. And typically, and I don't know if it's nine months or how long it has to be before you fund them, but after death, you're picking one and I'm complicating life and saying, okay, let's say at the time of the parent's death, the child is on SSDI or SSI. And the new ruling, the IRS has to accept what the Social Security Administration determined. So then presumably they are going to qualify and they're gonna qualify for the inherited stretch IRA over the child's life, or better yet the inherited stretch Roth IRA over the child's life.

0:17:14.7 James: And that can often be the difference for the child of a million dollars. So just to do...

0:17:23.9 VB: Wow.

0:17:24.0 James: Just to do easy numbers. Example number one child doesn't qualify for SSIS or SSDI, they have to take out the entire inherited IRA within 10 years of their parents' death. So that they have to pay taxes on that money way at a higher rate and it's worse at a trust rate within 10 years. Example. Number two, they don't have to take it out over 10 years. They have the old pre 2020 rules under the Pre-SECURE Act where they could stretch it or take distributions over their entire lives. And let's say that they have a life expectancy of 30 or 40 years, or even 20 years. That extra tax deferral, the money that they're not paying up front... To grow it dividends, interest, capital appreciation, and the difference could be a million dollars on a million dollar IRA. So it's really critical to get that right. And I'm just adding this additional nuance of the toggle trust. But that's what... I mean, a lot of us... I mean, frankly, I'm hopeful that my daughter does get better. She would... But if she doesn't, I wanna make sure that we're gonna maximize her position, whether she's doing better or whether she is, let's say, closer to the status quo.

0:18:45.7 VB: Yeah. Our mind can only go so far [laughter] in the lives of our child. Right. And, I can't imagine that it gets any easier the older that you get or the older the child gets, Amanda and I have a five-year-old and a 2-year-old, and she is a three-year-old. So we're the beginning of that journey. But just even from the perspective of we've been trying to look into next year it's hard. So I imagine the toggle is kind of this happy medium, right? For the time being to try to cover all your bases, if you will. And it sounds like, yeah, of course. You hope for the best and prepare for the worst. Right?

0:19:18.9 James: I think that's a good way of putting it. Now, of course, I'm not gonna do, let's say that you have two kids and one has a disability and one doesn't. It's perfectly fine to treat those children differently. So the child that doesn't have a disability, you could have a standard protection trust. The kid that does, if it's very clear they're gonna have a disability, you can just go with the special needs trust. If it's not clear, that's when I like the toggle.

0:19:45.5 AS: Wonderful.

0:19:45.6 VB: And so then I think we got through the two. What is the final?

0:19:49.1 James: And the last one, is something that most of your listeners are familiar with, but they don't know the power of it. When you are providing for a child with a disability, and by the way, there's a lot of things that you could do, but I'm just going to hit one because, because it's the big one. Interestingly enough, it's a series of Roth IRA conversions. This would apply to people who have IRAs and 401Ks and 403Bs, and 457s, and some type of retirement plan that has not yet been subject to tax. Because this money someday, either you, your spouse, or one of your kids or grandkids, charity, somebody is gonna pay tax on that money. So I had alluded earlier that if you have a child who doesn't qualify, and the technical term is EDB eligible designated beneficiary, if you have a child that doesn't qualify as EDB or in other words is not getting social security or is not getting SSI or SSDI or SSI, then that child has to take the money of the inherited IRA or the inherited Roth IRA over 10 years.

0:20:56.8 James: If they do qualify inherited IRA or inherited Roth IRA goes over their lifetime. Well, think about it. If they're deferring these distributions in a tax free manner over their lifetime, that might be 20, 30, 40 years. The additional tax free compounding. And particularly if the money's in a trust paying high trust rates that the value of those Roth IRA conversions, just does a phenomenal job of protecting the child.

0:21:30.8 VB: Oh wow.

0:21:30.9 James: And I don't know why it's not in the literature. I don't know why.

0:21:33.7 VB: Yeah. [laughter]

0:21:34.6 James: I don't know why that isn't the first thing an advisor thinks. No, of course. Again, qualify for SSI, the SSDI, and the estate planning right. And there's lots of other strategies and the A Black and, but I know my wife and I have converted what is now, well more than a million dollars to Roth IRAs. And that's the difference between our child running outta money and our child having 1.9 million.

0:22:01.8 VB: Wow.

0:22:01.9 James: Now, to be fair, we probably had a bigger IRA than most, and we actually made the conversion even before we knew our child had a disability. But even if you have a $500,000 IRA, taking these steps and using some pretty reasonable assumptions, your kid could be better off by $289,000 in today's dollars.

0:22:24.1 VB: Wow.

0:22:25.5 James: And if you're talking about a kid who might end up being broke or have very, very limited government benefits, $289,000 over their lifetime is huge.

0:22:36.1 VB: Absolutely.

0:22:38.4 James: And so a lot of people don't have, my traditional clients, most of 'em had a million dollars in IRA, but these strategies are available to people that don't have a million dollars. They might have 5,000 or $200,000. And this does sound a little arrogant because, attorneys love to debate everything and you're gonna, well, what's the downside, Jim, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And get, and I'm assuming by the way that we have somebody, whether it's most likely a CPA, maybe a financial advisor, attorneys are a little hopeless in this area. We have somebody who's crunching the numbers. We're assuming a 6% rate of return. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Here's if we do nothing, here's if we do, convert X during X years. So let's say that we optimize that. And yes, you can argue about the assumptions and yes, you're assuming what the tax rates might be in the future, blah, blah, blah. But this is gonna sound arrogant, but it's the way it is. And I want to understand this. This isn't a matter of opinion, this is a matter of math.

0:23:45.6 VB: Yeah, exactly. Numbers. Yeah.

0:23:45.7 James: This isn't you like Barbara Tristan and I like Whitney Houston.

[laughter]

0:23:48.8 James: That's a matter of opinion. This is a matter of math. And if the goal was the most purchasing power you wanna get this Roth IRA conversion strategy done Right.

0:24:03.7 VB: Make it. Exactly.

0:24:04.4 AS: And again, there's a lot more to it. And there's all types of nuances within the Roth IRA conversion world. I don't know if you knew that you could sometimes die with a traditional 401k and then make a Roth conversion after you're dead, at the top rate.

0:24:22.1 VB: Oh, interesting.

0:24:23.0 James: People don't know about that. Know about the after tax dollars in an IRA. So I cover all that. I just wanted to talk about the basics.

0:24:30.7 VB: Yeah, absolutely. I think it gives people, and time, is a thief. But as soon as you, you don't know what you don't know. And we can go down the litany of reasons why that is, but purpose of having you on our podcast is at least to kind of start these conversations with people, it is never too late. Like you had said, if your goal is to have a million dollars or something like that, you connect with somebody and you try to make that happen. But if you don't even know that it's a possibility to, make your money work for you. Outside of the traditional, just kind of saving our money and not spending a lot, like there are so many like high yield savings and accounts and like, there's all this stuff out there and wanted people to be able to kind of listen from your perspective as somebody that, yes. Had the expertise, but was able to kind of convert that information in a way that parents can digest it. And I kind of really wanted to get to how can parents learn more? Can they reach out to you? I know you have a summit that is planned for June. Can you talk a little bit about that? About how parents can get more information from you and your co-authors?

0:25:37.0 James: Sure. Let's start with free, because everybody loves free. And this might sound arrogant, but I believe every single one of the listeners on your show should take advantage and get a free copy of this book.

0:25:51.9 VB: Absolutely.

0:25:52.9 James: I put my heart and soul into it. It's 500 pages. There's a 16 page table of contents, so it's very easy to get to the exact thing that you're looking at. I don't recommend reading it to cover to cover unless you have a serious sleep problem. But there's great information in it. I literally have put hundreds of thousands of dollars into writing it, hiring the top CPAs, CPA writers, editors, my own time, my employees time, estate planning, and plus the work of the two wonderful co-authors. The book is called Retire Secure for Parents of a Child With a Disability. And the way you would get that, is you would go to a special website that we have set up for podcast listeners, including your listeners, and they would go to, disabledchildplanning three words, but all connected. Disabledchildplanning.com/podcast. So it's disabledchildplanning.com/podcast. And that will take 'em to a page where if they give us the contact information, we will just send them the book no cost. And I really encourage people to do it. And then when you get the book, this isn't something, especially if you get a digital version or you could get, a hard copy on Amazon or if you request it, we'll even do a hard copy depending on how many people respond.

[laughter]

0:27:20.7 James: I can handle a hundred, I can't handle like a thousand.

0:27:23.5 VB: Yeah. Right. Right.

0:27:24.5 James: But anyway, look at the table of contents. Because there's gonna be something there that you have wanted to know about. And then just start by reading one chapter or even one section.

0:27:40.0 AS: Exactly.

0:27:41.6 James: And we have lots of subheads, we have summaries and I threw in some cartoons and some humor to make it a little heavy stuff. So I try to make it light. So that is one resource that I would recommend every single listener take advantage of. And by the way, of the 500 pages, probably 350 pages applies to most anybody. So if I'm gonna talk to both of you for discussion's sake, that neither of your children have a disability, it has all types of very valuable information about what I would call the accumulation stage, which would be relevant for you and why you should put money Roth IRAs or Roth 401Ks, or in your case if you're working for a nonprofit, Roth 403B. And you might like to know that even the employer share can now go into a Roth.

0:28:30.2 James: I didn't start the book with a blank sheet of paper. I had nine bestseller books. I took the best of those books. I then I tailored it for parents of a child with a disability and then I got the two co-authors. Alright. So that's, let's say resource number one. The second resource is some people do better learning by actually hearing a webinar or a summit.

0:28:51.8 VB: Yes.

0:28:53.3 James: And the other thing, the other advantage of webinars and summits, and particularly the way I do them, is it gives people a chance to ask questions. So what we've done, so we've already done one summit where we had the three co-authors and we got all types of accolades and how wonderful the information was, blah, blah blah. So we decided for the next one we're going to expand it. So we're gonna have the three co-authors speak respective areas of expertise. And I genuinely think the three of us are gonna give fabulous information.

0:29:22.4 VB: Absolutely.

0:29:23.9 James: And, but we also decided, well let's do some other areas within the, let's say each, parent with a child with a disability world. So we're bringing in Tatyana McFadden, who is one of the top athletes with a disability, a Paralympian champion, 20 medals, I think 24 World Championships marathon.

0:29:43.9 VB: Incredible. Wow.

0:29:48.0 James: Yeah. Yeah. And she has a story that I wish I had more time to tell, but so she's kind of like the celebrity uplifting and she's a great speaker and a great woman who has advocated like her mother for parents with a child with a disability. And then we have a variety of other experts. So we have somebody who's gonna talk about raising a kid with autism and somebody who's gonna talk about raising a kid with bipolar and then somebody else with brain injury.

0:30:16.6 James: And so we have a whole bunch of specialty speakers. Now, if your kid has autism, you're not gonna be interested in the talk on, for example, brain injury 'cause Right. Two different beasts.

0:30:28.6 VB: It's different.

0:30:29.6 James: And so you can pick and choose, well, alright, my kid's already qualified for SSI or SSDI, I don't have to listen to that one, but I do hear the estate planning one or I do want to hear what Jim has to say about Roth IRA conversions and I want to hear what the expert who on raising a kid with autism has to say. So it's at no cost. I have been advised that I should charge people because otherwise they won't think that they're getting good information.

[laughter]

0:30:58.3 VB: We've heard the same, we've heard the same. But, it's one of those things where, if they need it in that moment and they're really interested, they will show up. And it sounds like it was really successful the last time. So we appreciate you providing it as a free resource.

0:31:13.5 James: Yeah. And the other thing is, people have different goals at different points in their lifetime.

0:31:17.8 AS: Yes.

0:31:20.2 James: I'm 67 and do I wanna get, points? Yes. But not necessarily in dollars, it could be impact point.

0:31:27.7 VB: Absolutely.

0:31:28.1 James: And even if people don't even read any of my section, if they get this book, follow it, and either with some help or on their own, they get their kid qualified for SSI and SSDI. That's a wonderful thing because you've really made an impact and that's...

0:31:42.0 AS: Yeah. Absolutely. That's something that we families all the time to look into these things early. And I think a lot of families are aware of, some of the options available for putting funds into accounts for educational expenses, but they don't always think about like, what are the options there for them for after school or if the child doesn't go to college or all of that. So I think it's important that the families kind of get as much information as possible because it's not just gonna be done if they go to college or they go to a trade school or they, get a job or maybe they're at home or whatever. Wherever they may be. There's a lot more to their life than that.

0:32:18.6 James: Yes. And frankly, I applaud both of you who, so I didn't really get into, let's call it the nonprofit world until pretty late in my career at a point where, let's say the money isn't as important for both of you. Who could, I assume go out and make a lot more money working for a, for-profit law firm. You have dedicated your careers to the nonprofit world and you probably see a lot of people and probably don't charge anywhere near what the estate attorneys that I know charge.

0:32:50.6 VB: Right. Yeah. And, I think it's one of those things that when you're called to it, it doesn't matter when. As long as you hear and then are able to turn it into some, and that's why quite frankly, we were really excited to have you on because not enough people talk about money in general. And then when you have a child with a disability or, just even the child that you envisioned is not the child that's in front of you, you start to feel overwhelming sense of just overwhelmingness, I suppose. Yeah. You're just overwhelmed. Right. And so to be able to know that there is a resource that parents, I love the 16 page table of contents, if I have something in my mind, I just need to go and look at that one section.

0:33:33.1 VB: I can do that. And then on the other hand, being able to provide a summit virtually so that people can drop in and drop out. Like I mean it's just, it's a wonderful, wonderful resource and we just so appreciate your time today, James. We really enjoyed speaking to you about this matter. And listeners, all that information will be in our show notes. So you can just follow the link to get your free copy of Retire Secure for Parents of a Child With Disability. And James, if anybody wanted to connect with you, is there a way that they could reach you through the website or how could they connect with you?

0:34:06.4 James: But there's one other thing that I wanted to mention.

0:34:08.8 VB: Oh yeah.

0:34:09.2 James: For your listeners' convenience, if they go to that same website, disabledchildplanning.com/podcast, also has information about the summit.

0:34:21.3 VB: Oh, perfect.

0:34:23.2 James: So we don't have all the details, but we do have something up that says, yes, I'm interested. Send me more information as you get it. And then we...

0:34:30.3 VB: As a rolled out.

0:34:31.5 James: Touch with people on, so-and-so speaking at this time and so-and-so speaking at that time. And if people are interested in, contacting me directly potentially for services or information, they could go to admin@paytaxeslater.com. Again, that's admin@paytaxeslater.com. And then if they're interested in working with us or interested in information, we'll send a book. We'll send out a questionnaire. They fill out the questionnaire and then if it makes sense for us to have a consultation, then we will do that.

0:35:07.8 James: And we are offering consultations. The only thing I ask for is you don't come in blind. I want somebody to do a little reading. Watch some of our prior webinars. Something. Because I have limited time, people have limited budgets. We want to get right to the issues, et cetera. And I'm gonna give you guys a special round of applause because it's pretty rare when you have two attorneys and I was trying to speak quickly and I was trying to probably take over, which I didn't want, really want to do, but we only had a half hour and there was so much I wanted to get out and you guys were terrific about giving me that scope, which I'm not used to when I'm around.

0:35:45.9 VB: I mean, hey, you're the expert. No, yeah. No.

0:35:49.3 James: No... That... I.

0:35:50.8 VB: Oh yeah. That's why we have a podcast, Jim. We talk too much. And so it's easier than blogs. [laughter] So we get our fix when we do our solo episodes. So again, we wanted to give you the platform and really have the chance to speak freely and like you did for our listeners. So, again, we appreciate you, listeners, we hope you enjoyed this episode. Please follow the links in our show notes to get more information and to potentially join that summit. I think it'll be really great. And you get a free book. So we'll talk to you guys next week.

0:36:20.6 AS: Bye.

0:36:20.7 James: Thank you.