EP# 147 - Josh Dorcey Unpacks the Myths and Musts of Estate Law

When you think about estate planning, does it feel like a service reserved only for the ultra-wealthy? Let Josh Dorcey, CEO and Managing Attorney at Dorcey Law Firm, debunk this myth for you. On our latest episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast Estero, we sit down with Josh as he paints a vivid picture of how vital estate planning is for anyone with assets or family to think about. From safeguarding your startup's future to establishing elder law guidance, his in-depth knowledge on tailoring legal solutions for every stage of life and business is a true testament to his firm's dedication to community service.

Josh's journey into law, inspired by his father's innovative trust funding service, is a narrative of foresight and strategy. He shares how the team at Dorcey Law Firm ensures clients' assets align with their future aspirations while highlighting their resilience through hurricanes and the pandemic. Listening in, you'll also learn about the importance of selecting the right decision-makers for personal affairs and how a will doesn't always guarantee the avoidance of probate—contrary to popular belief. This episode offers a glimpse into the world of legal strategies with a neighborly touch, where you're not just a client but part of a community that thrives on shared stories and collective success.

Dorcey Law
Josh Dorcey
10181 Six Mile Cypress Pkwy, Suite C
Fort Myers, FL 33966
239-418-0169
intake@dorceylaw.com
WEBSITE

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, cabo, jim Schaller.

Speaker 2: 0:11

Welcome Good Neighbors to episode number 147 of the Good Neighbor Podcast Estero. Today we have Good Neighbor Josh Dorcey, the CEO and Managing Attorney at Dorcey Law Firm. Welcome.

Speaker 3: 0:23

Thanks Cabo.

Speaker 2: 0:24

Yeah, pleasure to get to know people here in the community and learn a little bit more about what they do. So let's jump right in. Why don't you start off by sharing a little bit of what you do over at Dorcey Law Firm?

Speaker 3: 0:36

So we are a full-service transactional firm handling estate planning, business planning and asset protection planning planning, business planning and asset protection planning and we are a firm of roughly 13 attorneys total staff of 45. And, as I said, we're full service, so we can handle startups from the business side from beginning through murders and acquisitions. On the estate planning side, we handle wills and trusts all the way from Medicaid planning through our elder law department, all the way through ultra high net worth in our ultra high net worth tax planning department, and so, depending on the person's needs, we have a department for almost everybody.

Speaker 2: 1:14

Very nice, very nice. So let's back up your story a little bit. How did you get involved in the law industry?

Speaker 3: 1:21

So I actually had my dad, who was a financial advisor in Southwest Florida, and he had a lot of clients that needed estate planning, and he noticed that there was a missing gap in the estate planning world in the 80s and 90s here, and that is, a lot of attorneys were creating trusts or estate planning documents, but nobody was assisting the clients and actually putting those assets into their estate plan and do their trust. And so when I was a kid, my dad actually created a trust funding company and other attorneys in town would hire him to fund the trust that they were creating. And so he guided me and said you know, if you're going to go into law, you should really be an estate planning attorney in Southwest Florida. And so we're one of the few law firms in Southwest Florida that have our own trust funding department. So when we work with clients in estate planning, we actually guide them and work with them to make sure their assets are actually aligning with their estate plan.

Speaker 2: 2:13

That is great, great insight and vision on his part to do that. So we've all had some type of I'm going to say or maybe obstacle along our journey that you know, helped define who we are today. Is there something that happened along your journey?

Speaker 3: 2:36

There's been several, but you know, when you start a company from scratch and you build a team, I've watched our team grow and I'm just really proud of the awards that we've won as a team. But there's no doubt that when we hit Hurricane Irma and then we had COVID and then we hit Hurricane Ian, those are three just very terrible times in the life of a business as you're trying to keep your employees employed and you know they have things going on in their personal life At the same time. You know wills and trusts were not on anyone's top of mind awareness when they're worried about fixing their house or their neighbor's houses, and so those three events, really all in a five year period, definitely put us in a very unique spot being business owners in Southwest Florida.

Speaker 2: 3:15

Absolutely A tough time for everybody that was involved, but it seems like we're emerging and we're moving forward finally, gene, and we're moving forward finally. It's nice to see. So are there any maybe myths or misconceptions regarding what you do that we could clear up for our listeners? Yeah, I think there's a couple of misconceptions.

Speaker 3: 3:34

One is that estate planning is only for those that are wealthy. Estate planning is really once you start having an asset or you start having families, you need to start thinking about what you're going to do with those assets in the event that you pass away. And then estate planning is also what we call above ground planning, which means if we lose capacity, do we have the appropriate decision makers in place to make decisions for either healthcare or financial purposes for us? So estate planning is not just for the ultra wealthy, but it does mean that the estate plan has to be geared or crafted around the individual circumstances. I think the second issue that we run into a lot is when it comes to probate avoidance. Oftentimes people think that wills avoid the probate process, and in fact, a will and probate are synonymous. They guarantee each other. So if you die with only a will, your will will go through probate, and so there's a few ways to avoid probate, but the misconception is that a will would be one of those tools, and it is not.

Speaker 2: 4:30

Absolutely. That's a great insight on that. Is there anything that's, I want to say, changed or maybe trending in the industry that's different from the past? It is.

Speaker 3: 4:40

So, especially when it comes to qualified retirement accounts like IRAs and 401ks and the like, we had a major change at the end of 2019 called the SECURE Act, and then we had another change where the SECURE Act really put in some new implementation of new rules at the beginning of 2024. And that is how an IRA can pass from a parent to another generation and the way that that can happen and how we have the ability to protect that IRA as an inherited IRA when it passes to our kids. We actually had a Supreme Court ruling back in 2014, called the Romaker decision, which a lot of people don't realize took away federal credit protection from inherited IRAs, while if an IRA flows through a trust when their mom or dad die, the trust that they are inheriting from their parents actually can pick up the credit protection that the Romaker decision took away, and so we still have the ability to make sure our heirs inherit an IRA that's protected. It just has to flow through an appropriately drafted trust.

Speaker 2: 5:42

Wow, and like you mentioned, I mean things are constantly changing, so people need people like yourself to stay on top of that, because what you thought yesterday may not be the story today. So you mentioned your dad started the law firm down here in Southwest Florida. Does that mean you were born and raised down here?

Speaker 3: 6:01

I was born and raised down here. He was a financial advisor, but I'm actually technically fourth generation in Southwest Florida, so it's very unique to find individuals that have been here for as long as we have, and so we're blessed to call Southwest Florida home.

Speaker 2: 6:16

Absolutely so. You've probably seen a lot of change down here.

Speaker 3: 6:20

Roads that I don't even know exist.

Speaker 2: 6:24

I hear you on that, so I know you know owning your own law firm and being involved in that demands a lot of time. What do you enjoy doing outside of work?

Speaker 3: 6:34

So I have two daughters, and my wife and I really enjoy watching them ride their horses. They are both starting down the rodeo journey and so they're learning to run barrels and poles and keyhole and hairpin, and so we spent a lot of time up at the barn with our girls and their horses, and then we also love to travel.

Speaker 2: 6:53

Absolutely. You got to love that. That's why we live down here. So is there one thing maybe our listeners don't know about what you guys do, that maybe they should know.

Speaker 3: 7:05

Yeah, what I would say is, as I mentioned a little bit earlier, when it comes to estate planning, there's that misconception of you know. Is it do I have enough assets to do estate planning? Well, it's the same thing when it comes to trust-based planning, People oftentimes say I don't have enough money to do a trust. The biggest difference between a will and a trust is the ability to avoid probate when we pass away, and so if probate is a concern and they want to avoid probate, a trust is definitely a vehicle they should look at. However, how we leave things to the next generation or to our beneficiaries is sometimes more important than to what we leave them, and so I mentioned that not all trusts are created equal.

Speaker 3: 7:46

Oftentimes, somebody will tell me they have a trust. Well, telling me that you have a trust is like telling me you have a cell phone or a mobile phone I don't know if it's a bag phone from the 80s, a flip phone from the early 90s or a really smartphone from today and so just because you have a trust or your neighbor has a trust, it doesn't mean your trust is doing the same thing as other people's. And in a trust, if you can dream it, we can typically draft it, and so trust should truly be created around someone's individual circumstances. Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 8:17

So how would our listeners go about getting a hold of you if they had questions concerns things that they needed to address?

Speaker 3: 8:24

So we can be found at the web or on the web at our website, which is www. dorceylaw. com. Now, dorcey for me is unique spelling, so it's D-O-R-C-E-Y, so it's www. dorceylaw. com. You can reach us by phone at our phone number, which is 239-418-0169, and just ask for our intake department and they will gladly get us connected. Or you can send us an email to intake at Dorsey law dot com and that's intake@ DorseyLaw. com, and we do have a prerecorded workshop that I have done that. Anyone that is interested that would like a copy of that. Once again, if they email intake at DorseyLawcom and ask for a copy of that that they can watch at the comfort of their own home, we will gladly send that to them.

Speaker 2: 9:16

Perfect, perfect, any last words for our listeners.

Speaker 3: 9:19

Enjoy Southwest Florida. You know, we are not only surviving here, but we are thriving and we are standing as one and it is great. So thank you to everybody.

Speaker 2: 9:27

Absolutely, josh. Thank you for being such a good neighbor. Pleasure getting to know you and I hope to see you on the community soon Sounds good. Thanks, cabo, appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 9:36

Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast, estero. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpesterocom. That's gnpesterocom, or call 239-296-2621.