Why Do I Need A Lawyer And A Financial Advisor?

When you ask someone what a financial advisor and an attorney do, you will most likely get a lot

Matt Brown is a Certified Financial Planner ® and owner of 304 Family Wealth of Raymond James in Cookeville, TN, with satellite locations in Crossville and Jamestown. Brown was named on the 2025 Forbes Top Wealth Advisors Best-In-State ranking, and his team earned a spot on the Forbes 2025 Best-in-State Wealth Management Teams List.*

of very different answers from people. The reason is that it all depends on what financial advisors and attorneys you are dealing with.

Now, more than ever, people want things to be easy and customized all at the same time. The best advisors and attorneys are moving away from the transactional business model that a lot of people have grown accustomed to. The most successful advisory and legal firms are now basing their entire business model on personal relationships and working with the same families on an ongoing basis. This is because lives are always changing. They are adding family members and losing family members; there are in-laws being added to the mix; blended families coming together; and the one thing that none of us can escape—father time catching up with us all. That is why it is so important to have ongoing relationships with professionals in both the legal and financial spaces.

As things change, you can more easily update and adapt quickly to whatever life is throwing at you if you have trained and experienced professionals who are keeping up with your ever-changing life, including the tax and legal landscape that is ever evolving with each election cycle.

Having a team of people who are thinking of you and your personal family as new trends and opportunities come out is more valuable than you can imagine to a family's financial legacy. In my line of work, I have seen in more instances than I can count how people who are extremely intelligent and thought they had it all figured out and were trying to save a few dollars on the front end by not working with a financial advisor and estate planning attorney end up costing their families unneeded taxes, multiple yearlong probates, and in some cases losing the majority of their life savings to nursing home cost.

Doing some tax planning and estate planning will help your family at some point down the road, whether you are here to see it come to fruition. One of my favorite sayings of all time is, "Sometimes leadership is planting trees under whose shade you'll never sit."

Find advisors in both the legal and financial space who are willing to communicate with each other and attend meetings with your whole family.

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*2025 Forbes Best-in-State Wealth Advisors, developed by Shook Research, is based on the period from 6/30/2023 to 6/30/2024 and was released on 4/8/2025. 48,944 nominations were received and 9,722 advisors won. Neither Raymond James nor any of its advisors pay a fee in exchange for this award. More: https://bit.ly/3E2gIf4. Please see https://www.forbes.com/best-in-state-wealth-advisors for more info.

*The 2025 Forbes ranking of America’s Best-in-State Wealth Management Teams, developed by SHOOK Research, is based on an algorithm of qualitative criteria, mostly gained through telephone and in-person due diligence interviews, and quantitative data. This ranking is based upon the period from 3/31/2023 to 3/31/2024 and was released on 01/09/2025. Advisor teams that are considered must have one advisor with a minimum of seven years of experience, have been in existence as a team for at least one year, have at least 5 team members, and have been nominated by their firm. The algorithm weights factors like revenue trends, assets under management, compliance records, industry experience and those that encompass best practices in their practices and approach to working with clients. Portfolio performance is not a criteria due to varying client objectives and lack of audited data. Out of approximately 11,674 team nominations, 5,331 advisor teams received the award based on thresholds. This ranking is not indicative of an advisor's future performance, is not an endorsement, and may not be representative of individual clients' experience. Neither Raymond James nor any of its Financial Advisors or RIA firms pay a fee in exchange for this award/rating.

Compensation provided for using the rating. Raymond James is not affiliated with Forbes or Shook Research, LLC. Please see https://www.forbes.com/lists/wealth-management-teams-best-in-state for more info.