Welcome back to season two of Splitting Heirs, Lowenstein Sandler's Trusts & Estates podcast. In this new episode, Warren Racusin is joined by partner Mike Vito and Brooklyn Law Professor of Legal Writing Alissa Bauer to discuss why lawyers communicate the way they do and how they can make themselves easier to understand. They also provide listeners with a clear, easy-to-understand glossary of some of the more commonly used - yet often opaque - terms that frequently arise in conversations about trusts, wills, and taxes.
Speakers:
Warren K. Racusin, Partner
and Chair, Trusts & Estates
Michael P. Vito, Partner,
Trusts & Estates
Alissa Bauer, Assistant
Professor of Legal Writing, Brooklyn Law School
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READ THE TRANSCRIPT
Kevin Iredell: Welcome to the Lowenstein Sandler podcast series. I'm Kevin Iredell, Chief Marketing Officer at Lowenstein Sandler. Before we begin, please take a moment to subscribe to our podcast series at lowenstein.com/podcasts. Or find us on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, Google podcast, and SoundCloud. Now let's take a listen.
Warren Racusin: We're back. From the law firm Lowenstein Sandler, it's season two of Splitting Heirs. I'm Warren Racusin. Welcome back.
A hot air balloonist is floating in her balloon one day. She realized that she needs to make a small repair, so she decides to land the balloon. She sets it down, hops out, and she sees that she's in a field next to a lake by a large grove of trees. She sees a man walking by, calls him over and says, "Please, can you tell me where I am?" And the man says, "Yes, you're in a field next to a lake by a large grove of trees." The balloonist says to the man, "You must be a lawyer." The man says, "I am. How did you know that?" And the balloonist says, "Because what you've told me is precisely correct and of no value whatsoever."
This may come as a surprise to many of you, but there are folks out there who think that people can't understand lawyers. They say we talk on and on. We create cumulus clouds of words sprinkled with whereas's, theretofore's, herein's, and folks know less about the topic we're talking about after they talked to us than they did before. I know that comes as a shock to many of you, but trust me, we do hear that from time to time. Now here at S Silent H, we work hard not to do that. We get really happy when people tell us we've explained things simply and clearly and in ways that they can easily understand. And when you're talking about complicated stuff like trusts and estates, that's a real compliment. But we always think we can do a better job. So, today we're taking you to T&E school.
We're going to talk you through some terms that we've touched on and used during season one. We want to make sure you've got a full and clear explanation. It'll be a glossary that you can use whenever you want because we're actually going to post it on our website. We're also going to talk about how lawyers communicate, whether they do a good job or not so much, and we'll tie those two together. Our tutors for this class in the ABCs of T&E are my partner Mike Vito, who's also one of the stars of episode three of season one, who will take us through the trusts and estate's terms, and Professor Alissa Bauer, who among other things teaches legal writing to first year law students at Brooklyn Law School. So, let's dive in here and let's go right to the scariest term that people know about when they think about trusts and estates, probate. What exactly is probate because maybe we can demystify that just a little bit.
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