It started with a direct mail piece sent by Kuhn and Kuhn, a legal practice that specializes in Elder Law, inviting my husband and I to attend an upcoming seminar about trust and estate estate planning. It made sense … it hit all the right buttons. We hadn’t updated our ‘legal documents’ since relocating to SC … we’re at that age … maybe, we should go … huh? Well, I signed up and attended a session at the Town and Country Motel in West Ashley. There were about 15 other attendees. The facilitator, Kathryn Cockrill, JD, was a well honed speaker and presented some tough material in a user friendly manner, including, but not limited to, living trusts, probate, health care directives and power of attorney, special needs planning, pet planning, and asset protection. It did not take long for me to realize that trust and estate planning is not just for rich people, it’s for smart people. That being said, I took advantage of an offer for a free 2 hour consultation and scheduled an appointment two weeks later for my husband and I to meet with Ms. Cockrill at the Kuhn and Kuhn office at 39 Broad Street. I won’t sugar coat it … it was a process. We left the office with a hefty package requiring us to provide a significant amount of information, as well as source documents, that would be used to set up and fund our trust. Frankly, it was therapeutic and initiated many conversations about what we each really wanted as the surviving spouse and/or if the surviving spouse becomes incompetent.(We have no family in SC.) We even addressed care of our precious furkid, or dogs that we may purchase from a breeder, or rescue in the future. Two weeks later, we returned to the office to go over completed workbook and sign that dotted line. A week later, we headed back to Broad street … our Trust was setup, and funded. We left the office with a professionally prepared, well organized binder that contained all the newly prepared documents. Finally, everything was in one place. I won’t bore you with details … I’ll cut to the chase … the fee was $ 4300 plus $ 168 for some deed work. Was it expensive, perhaps, but we have peace of mind and once you get to a certain age, can you put a price on it?