1. The Game of Titles

If you’ve ever tried to untangle the difference between a wealth manager, an investment manager, a financial planner, and a financial advisor, congratulations—you’ve already qualified for a merit badge in industry jargon decoding. Add estate-planning attorney to the mix and you have an entire periodic table of professional roles, each claiming a unique atomic number but often sharing electrons.

 

Recent headlines make the sorting even trickier. According to The Wall Street Journal, assets held in off-the-shelf “model portfolios” topped $7.96 trillion this spring, with more than 80 percent of fee-based advisors now outsourcing actual investment picks to third-party strategists. The trend lets advisors “focus on relationships” while someone else pulls the trigger on the trades, nudging us to ask: If the investing decisions are farmed out, what exactly is each professional on your speed dial doing for you?

 

That question matters because gaps between titles and tasks become sinkholes when something big happens—like naming a trustee, protecting a family business, or updating beneficiary designations. Below, we’ll unpack who plans, who advises, who manages, and—crucially—when you need a lawyer at the table (hint: sooner than you think).

 

2. Meet the Cast: Four Hats, Four Skill Sets

 

Role	Core Superpower	Typical Credentials	Biggest Blind Spot
Financial Advisor	Broad guidance on money goals, asset allocation, high-level strategy	Series 65, Series 7, sometimes CFP®	May hand off day-to-day investing, estate nuances
Financial Planner	Written plan covering cash flow, retirement, taxes, risk, college, etc.	CFP®, ChFC®, CPA/PFS	Implementation fatigue—great plans, dusty shelves
Investment Manager	Security selection, tactical tilts, rebalancing	CFA®, CIO teams, algorithms	Rarely sees client’s full legal/estate picture
Estate-Planning Attorney	Legal documents, tax strategy, fiduciary structures, asset-protection road map	J.D., State Bar, LL.M. (Tax)	Sometimes stereotyped as “just documents”

(Yes, the same human can wear two—or all four—hats, but clarity on which hat they’re wearing at any moment is the secret sauce.)

 

3. “Advisors” Who Don’t Evaluate Investments? Welcome to 2025.

 

This is the investor’s paradox: outsourcing models free advisors to do more “planning,” but clients often assume the same person is still driving the investment bus. Assets in model portfolios ballooned by 24 percent in a single year, with megafirms like BlackRock adding an ETF to a model and watching assets in that fund jump tenfold within days.

 

In practice, your advisor may now spend mornings on client meetings, afternoons refining financial-wellness dashboards, and exactly zero minutes combing through small-cap balance sheets. That’s neither good nor bad—it simply means:

 

• You still need someone verifying the investment strategy’s fit with your estate plan.
• Communication among the advisor, outsourced manager, and attorney must be explicit.
• The buck has to stop somewhere. If it isn’t clear who owns a decision, you own the risk.

 

4. Is Your Financial Planner Actually “Planning”?

 

A rock-solid financial plan is a living document, not the dusty binder you got five years ago. Ask:

 

1. Update cadence. Do you revisit projections after major tax-law tweaks or life events?
2. Estate coordination. Does the plan integrate distribution provisions in your trust, or does it assume you’ll magically remember to amend your beneficiary forms?
3. Implementation scoreboard. How many action items were checked off last quarter? If most boxes still read “TBD,” you need either more accountability—or a lawyer to hard-wire changes directly into binding documents.

 

5. When Estate Planners Step Beyond “Paperwork”

 

At Slowik Estate Planning, I refuse to play “document vending machine.” Done right, estate planning is equal parts legal engineering, tax craftsmanship, and old-fashioned coaching. My firm:

 

• Works in multidisciplinary pods. I routinely Zoom with CPAs, investment teams, and insurance specialists so the left hand (your portfolio) knows what the right hand (your trust) is doing.
• Offers reality checkpoints. If your living trust says “all property, present and future,” but your LLC operating agreement forbids transfers without unanimous consent, we flag that pothole before it flattens your tire.
• Plays referral switchboard. Need an institutional trustee? A niche investment consultant? I have vetted lists. I don’t engage in “scope creep.”

 

6. Ten Moments When You Absolutely Need a Lawyer in the Huddle

 

1. Naming—or firing—a trustee or executor. The legal duty (and potential liability) is too large to wing it.
2. Funding a Revocable Living Trust. If you leave assets outside the trust, the “avoid probate” promise turns into wishful thinking.
3. Changing beneficiary designations after remarriage, birth, or divorce. One wrong date and half your IRA may detour to an ex-spouse.
4. Creating—or dismantling—an LLC that holds family real estate or a practice. Asset-protection statutes do not self-execute.
5. Drafting buy-sell agreements. A discounted valuation clause can swing estate taxes by millions.
6. Installing Dynasty or GST-exempt trusts for minors or grand-minors. You snooze, you lose the GST exemption allocation.
7. Planning for incapacity. Power-of-attorney forms downloaded five years ago may fail Georgia’s 2017 statutory upgrade.
8. Implementing asset-protection strategies before a lawsuit emerges. Timing is everything; lawyers are the clock.
9. Creating charitable remainder or lead trusts to shelter a future windfall. (Yes, the CRT must exist before you sign the deal.)
10. Deciding who pays the tax bill in blended-family scenarios. If the trust is silent, drama ensues.

 

Notice how many of these items circle back to the planning-advising-managing triangle. The attorney’s toolkit turns advice into implementation, then hands management back to the advisor team.

 

7. A (Lightly Fictional) Case Study: The Allens and the “Invisible” Portfolio Manager

 

Characters:

• Jordan Allen (age 55): Tech-company VP, self-described “spreadsheet hobbyist.”
• Casey Allen (age 54): Physician with a solo 401(k).
• The Allens’ Advisor Group: A national RIA using third-party model portfolios.
• Slowik Estate Planning: Yours truly.

 

Plot Twist: The Allens believed their advisor picked each ETF in their accounts. In reality, the RIA followed BlackRock’s Global Allocation Model. When BlackRock swapped one bond ETF for another, it triggered unexpected capital gains right before the Allens planned to gift shares into a CRUT.

 

Enter the lawyer. We re-sequenced the transfers, neutralizing the surprise gains and preserving the gift’s income stream.

 

Takeaway: Even outsourced models can be choreographed—if an attorney with tax goggles coordinates the dance.

 

8. Protecting Assets While Outsourcing Investments

 

Outsourced investment models can coexist with strong asset-protection, but only if:

 

• Ownership is correct. The model account should reside in the trust or LLC—not in your individual name—if asset shielding is a priority.
• Manager authority is documented. Your trustee or LLC manager agreement must authorize the outsourced strategist’s trades; otherwise, you risk breach-of-fiduciary-duty claims.
• Beneficiary sidelines are clear. “Designated beneficiary” forms at custodians should mirror trust language to avoid accidental probate pipelines.

 

Translation: The lawyer writes the rules; the advisor or manager plays the game; the planner keeps score.

 

9. But Who Manages You? Behavioral Coaching and Fiduciary Reality Checks

 

Outsourcing can unintentionally free up time for advisors to do what humans do best: behavioral coaching. That includes:

• Talking you out of panic-selling when markets wobble
• Reminding you your estate plan is not an heirloom but a living organism
• Nudging you to finish that IRA beneficiary form you printed but never signed

 

A lawyer amplifies those nudges with enforceable levers. Some of the tools and tactics include automatic trust provisions that limit sudden discretionary distributions during market meltdowns, or “trust protectors” who can swap a trustee frozen by fear.

 

It’s like hiring a personal trainer and a nutritional coach. The trainer yells, “Lift!” The nutritionist asks, “Did you really eat three cronuts for breakfast?” The attorney installs the smart fridge that locks at 10 p.m.

 

10. Coordinating the Dream Team—Practical Tips

 

1. Shared Calendars: Quarterly or semi-annual joint calls among advisor, planner, CPA, and attorney keep agendas tight.
2. Secure Document Vaults: Use a single portal so everyone works off of the same “live” trust PDF, not version 17-final-final(2).doc.
3. Conversation Hierarchy: Decide who speaks first on each topic. Example: tax questions → CPA; legal capacity questions → attorney; risk-profile tweaks → advisor.
4. Written Delegations: If an investment committee exists, spell out veto power and successor rules in the trust or LLC operating agreement.
5. KPI Dashboards: Track not just returns, but estate milestones: trust funded? beneficiaries up to date? durable powers executed?

 

11. FAQs We Field Weekly (and Honest Answers)

 

“If my advisor is ‘planning,’ do I still need an estate attorney?”
Absolutely. Planning analyses can spotlight gaps, but only a lawyer can draft trusts, deeds, LLC agreements, or other legal documents that close them.

 

“Can my estate attorney manage my money?”
Technically yes (nothing bars an attorney from holding a securities license), but at Slowik Estate Planning I choose to specialize in legal matters and coordinate with dedicated investment pros.

 

“If my advisor’s firm goes robo, who’s liable for bad trades?”
Usually the advisory firm retains fiduciary duty and must monitor the outsourced manager. Your attorney can embed indemnities or removal clauses in trust documents to mitigate fallout.

 

12. The Georgia Angle (State Laws Matter)

 

• Probate Process: Georgia’s relatively streamlined probate still takes months and opens your records to public inspection. Placing assets in a revocable trust—with proper funding—avoids that spotlight.
• Uniform Trust Code Adoption: Georgia’s UTC tweaks allow “directed trusts,” letting an investment advisor manage assets while a separate trustee handles distributions. Lawyers draft the directed trustee language; planners and managers run the machinery.
• Asset-Protection Trusts: Georgia is not a self-settled asset-protection trust state (yet), so LLCs and third-party spendthrift trusts remain your shield. Forming the LLC before litigation is essential; doing so afterward can be deemed a fraudulent transfer.

 

13. The Call-in-the-Lawyer Checklist

 

Use this fast filter. If you answer “yes” to any of the following, dial your friendly neighborhood estate attorney:

 

	Question	Example
1	“Am I naming a trustee/executor?”	Newly funded trust, business succession plan
2	“Am I moving real estate into or out of an LLC or trust?”	Rental property in Midtown Atlanta
3	“Am I changing beneficiaries after a life event?”	Second marriage, new child
4	“Is asset protection a priority?”	Medical professionals, entrepreneurs
5	“Will this trigger gift/estate/GST tax?”	Gifting a large brokerage account
6	“Do I need court-proof incapacity documents?”	Aging parents, international travel
7	“Am I coordinating with an outsourced investment model?”	BlackRock or Vanguard model portfolios
8	“Do I want a corporate trustee?”	Complex multi-state assets
9	“Am I creating or funding a charitable trust?”	Anticipated liquidity event
10	“Do I want to keep family drama off the front page?”	Yes. Always.

 

14. Bringing It All Home—Why Teams Trump Silos

 

A single advisor may have started as your go-to, key person, but a modern wealth strategy resembles a football team:

• Coach (Manager): Calls plays, sets tempo
• Quarterback (Advisor): throws or hands off the ball—i.e., monitors markets, selects portfolio, and rebalances
• Assistant Coach (Planner): Fills gaps, watches the shot clock (your retirement horizon)
• Coordinator (Attorney): Designs the playbook, argues with referees (a.k.a. the IRS), and makes sure the team bus (your estate) arrives on time

 

Skip the coach and even an all-star squad can foul out at the buzzer.

 

15. Parting Wisdom

 

1. Don’t assume your “financial guy” secretly attended night law school.
2. Google-doc templates don’t love you back.
3. Reading disclaimers is cheaper than litigating them.
4. If your advisor brags about outsourcing investments, applaud—then ask who’s outsourcing the legal stuff.

 

And remember: you can outsource tasks, but not responsibility. The family photo at the top of your estate-plan binder is still yours.

 

16. Ready to Craft Your Legacy?

 

My happiest days involve collaborating with inspired financial pros to build estate plans that work in real life, not just on PowerPoint.

If you’re:

• Naming a trustee (human or corporate)
• Protecting assets from lawsuits or future ex-spouses
• Drafting or updating revocable living trusts, LLC agreements, or charitable vehicles
• Clarifying beneficiaries across retirement accounts and insurance policies…

 

…let’s talk. I live for the intersections where law meets life and I make a great referral partner for advisors, planners, and managers who want their clients’ plans bulletproof.

 

Call, email, or book a Zoom.