Legal Shield Interview

 

YOUTUBE LINK

 The Value of LegalShield: Empowering Middle-Class Families and Small Businesses

In this engaging episode, real estate broker Vito introduces his financial advisor, Patrick, to legal expert Kai, who provides an in-depth look at LegalShield and its benefits. Kai shares her journey from corporate America to a fulfilling career in LegalShield, detailing how the service helps middle-class families and small businesses with affordable access to legal services. The discussion covers critical topics like estate planning, trust formation, small business legal protections, and the importance of having legal consultations even for everyday issues. Kai emphasizes the transformative power of LegalShield in providing 24/7 access to attorneys, thereby leveling the playing field for middle-income Americans. Don't miss out on this eye-opening conversation that sheds light on how you can protect your assets and your future with affordable legal solutions.

00:00 Introduction and Greetings

00:03 Meeting Kai and Patrick

02:36 Personal Background and Career Journey

05:42 Legal Shield and Its Benefits

08:03 Real-Life Legal Shield Success Stories

09:53 The Importance of Legal Access for Everyone

16:22 Legal Shield for Families and Special Needs

21:10 The Manager's Office Incident

21:58 The Importance of Legal Protection

22:06 Trusts and Estate Planning

23:12 Legal Services for Small Businesses

24:45 The Value of Legal Consultation

27:51 Personal Stories and Legal Lessons

31:49 The Emotional Impact of Estate Planning

39:30 Final Thoughts and Contact Information

YOUTUBE BLOG PODCAST

  Introduction and Greetings All right. So, Kai, meet Patrick. Patrick, meet Kai. Hey. Meeting Kai and Patrick Kai does Legal shield, right? And then we did it before, and then I went through a little battle, a li not a battle, a little issue with my marriage. And oh, we cut costs down and I'm come, I'll be coming back to you here pretty soon, but. Yeah. I wanted to tell you, Patrick is a financial advisor. I'm a real estate broker, and we talked to everybody about financial intelligence and why it's smart to do certain things. And the reason we wanted you on this by the way, Patrick, the way I met Kai physically for the first time ever was with my cousin John, who we've interviewed, John our banker buddy. He's, he invited us to come and visit with an FBI fraud squad to talk about what's going on on that. But I did not know your brother was there. That's funny. He's my cousin. Yeah, John. He's the guy that the little Filipino guy who was talking there. Oh wow. Oh, I didn't know that. That's cool. I think, I don't know how you, I mean, they Look related, don't they? Yeah. We wust, yeah, Patrick found out I was Filipino. Yeah. Yeah. My husband's Filipino and El Salvadorian, oh, cool. There you go. Sometimes he looks more Middle Eastern, though. And during what, what nationality is daring? So I did not take his name because his last name is on the El Salvadorian side. So it's TIAA, and I couldn't even spell it. So I'm like, are you? And that was 21 years ago. And he is like, yeah, no, I don't care. I kept my name. You imagine having to grow up with a sia, it's like, how do you spell it? Sia? Yeah. I was like, yeah, I'll just keep it. Plus I'd already been established in business 'cause I've been with, um, legal Shield for 24 years in December. Oh, cow. Yeah. So I was like, well, I'm kind of already established. I don't, you know, unless you wanna take mine. And he was like, no. And so we were just like, we're fine. One of my best friends took his wife now, ex-wife's name. I've seen it happen for sure. And now he's different. They're divorced and he keeps their name. That's so interesting. So there you go. Yep. Yeah, we'll leave my opinion off of the air. Alright, so where do you wanna start? What do you wanna do? What do you want? Like, do you want to go through and talk about what you do and where? Yeah. Why don't you do that? So, I just wanna know, are we actually doing the podcast right now? Is that, yeah, we're gonna piece it together. Okay, I gotcha. And are you guys gonna ask me questions or are you just, I mean, I do a lot of 'em and they're all kind of different. The, like I'm doing one and I gave them eight questions to ask me. I have one on Saturday and so I don't know what you want. You can send me the eight questions, but I see you on Facebook doing standup talks and interviews and all sorts of stuff, and I know you're very. Very out there. That's what you do, right? Personal Background and Career Journey And maybe break it down and tell us about where you started 24 years ago, why you chose this, that kind of thing. Yeah, I think it's always interesting how people get started in their professions. And ironically I was a corporate girl and everything was great until it wasn't. I thought I was killing the game. And then, you know, my name was on some executive boardrooms, dry erase board with a circle and a line through it. And, uh, I got fired and I was completely shocked and I got fired. They said for insubordination. And I had to Oh, wow. Pick up. Yeah. 'cause I didn't even know what that meant at the time. Um, and it meant I had a problem with authority and I literally laughed out loud. I was like, yeah, that's probably about right, because I'm a really good worker. I was her top producer. But I just don't like being told what today. So I kind of just reevaluated life as we do often and said, you know what? I'd rather. If I'm gonna be, I was a hundred percent commissioned sales at the time, W2 employee, and I said, well, if I'm gonna be a hundred percent commissioned, I'm just gonna do my own thing. So I had a couple of failed ventures. It wasn't as easy as I thought to do my own thing. I had to build the airplane while it was in the air. And, uh, I had, like I said, uh, tried a few things and then I ended up in, um, health insurance and I did okay. It just didn't make my heart sing. I wasn't excited about it. We were first to the market with an HSA, which is a high deductible plan. So we layered it with a lot of things. And one of the things we layered it with was a legal plan because statistically they had less likelihood of using their health insurance, having workers' comp issue 'cause they were not stressed out. They had access to attorneys and I was already a member. 'cause my last corporate America job, they offered it as one of their voluntary benefits. And I actually took it when I left 'cause it was portable. And then when I opened up a traditional brick and mortar with employees overhead paperwork, the whole nine yards. I bought their small business plan and it saved my bacon on a lot of things. And so when a client asked, Hey, do you guys offer legal plans? It was a perfect fit for what we were doing. So I started offering it in conjunction with some of my other ancillary benefits with my health insurance clients going into companies and offering the small business product and the personal plan plans to the employees. And then within a handful of years, I. Why am I banging heads with another 3000 health insurance agents just right here in Silicon Valley? And it's, at the time it was, um, I'm gonna date myself, but it was Obamacare and you're really at the whim of the government. And I don't like businesses where I have, potentially opportunities to lose money or be outta business just because of somebody voting on something. And, um, so I decided that I, I sold that business to the 401k guy. I signed in on compete and went to work with Legal Shield on a full-time basis, uh, after that and I started working from home. So I had none of that overhead and all the paperwork, no underwriting, no licensing, I could write it anywhere. It was guaranteed issue and it was like the perfect business model with all the residuals I was looking for, but not all the headaches. And that's really how I transitioned and was able, and that's been two decades ago now. This has been my only source of income empowering people legally, and I can't think of anything more noble. I'm kind of a hippie dippy. I went to college in Eugene and have a sociology degree and a woman's studies minor. And so Are you a duck? Yeah. Go. And so it, it allowed me the opportunity to be able to have that social justice aspect that I liked and I loved in my college days. Um, but to, to do it professionally now too. Giving people access to their rights sometimes for the very first time. Yeah. That is pretty amazing. Cool. Legal Shield and Its Benefits So what are some of the things that you've used legal Shield for? I'm not a criminal. What you wanna talk about? Yeah. No, and it's funny because people go, I would never need a legal plan. I'm not a criminal. And I go, what? What is that I gonna do with anything? I'm like, my mother passed away without her estate planning instruments and I had a legal situation. It didn't mean I was a criminal. You know, so I've used the, the services prior to, I was referring it for free. Prior to getting involved, I had used it for $300 on a medical bill, $1,200 on a deposit. I had gotten my will done. And then in the business side of it, I had an employee try to steal my clients and it didn't really stand up in court here, but they wrote a scary letter and they stopped, you know, trying to pick off my clients. I used it recently when, um, an insurance company tried to lowball me. I wasn't even in the same city when they crashed into my camper van and ruined my fun times. And, uh, I thought I'd get an extra 7,000, but because I had access to an attorney helping me ghost write a letter, I got an extra 10. I got an extra $17,000. Wow. Because I had access to an attorney and when our programs ranged from $30 a month on up, I mean one use, you probably paid for it for a decade, especially if you got your will done. One of our programs, you can do a trust, you know, if you did it just a will for free. For two, we cover the member and the spouse. That's. At least where we live, about $2,400. You know, you paid for that thing for a decade. So yes, there's a cost for having it, but I'm gonna argue there's a cost for not having it. How many times have we taken those? Little tiny irritants and just yelped somebody about it 'cause it stunk and we didn't get the justice we deserved. But you know, it made us feel better, but it didn't really move the needle 'cause we're just the little guy going up against these big companies. Whether it's the airlines, whether it's the insurance company, whether it's the landlord, the visa company. I mean, who knows who you're going up against. And so it really does love that legal playing field where. You know, trivial to traumatic, it doesn't really matter. We, we can access and it doesn't cost us, you know, our first born Yeah. Their college, you know, education and stuff. So that's why I love it. And um, yeah, so it's probably saved me and just hard cold cash. Over the 24 years, about $75,000. But it's hard to put a price tag on, like Vito, how do you hold title? Well, you're a realtor, you can't give legal advice. So I was able to call my attorney, find out how to hold title those types of questions that will Google and I, and I'm sorry, you can put it through ai. It just doesn't mean that it's always right. 'cause the law's not always logical. That's right. No. Is it written correctly for each state and jurisdiction? Yeah. Correct. Right, and here's the thing Right? Real-Life Legal Shield Success Stories I we're in contract to sell our last duplex, but I owned six or seven duplexes. One of 'em burnt down three months to the day that I, I closed on it. Luckily, nothing legal happened from that because the tenant actually started it. Nobody got hurt, which, you know, thank God, but we got our money back. No, no questions asked. And then, I wanna say a couple six months into it, a couple six years into it, the sewer backed up. It was the fault of the city, but they were claiming it was our, my, my responsibility. The sewer backed up underneath the duplex and all of a sudden came to me. So we went to Legal Shield and said, Hey, what do we do? And they said, we'll write this letter. Make sure you're good. The tenant's we want money. I feel sick, obviously 'cause they're smelling backed up sewer paper. And so we wrote and it just helped. It helped. I mean, it helped. And it didn't cost us anything for the letter to be written and the tenant went away. Luckily we gave them some money for clothes or what have you, so they can be put into a hotel until we took care of that matter. And then, you know, obviously the cost of having to clean up the sewer underneath, which I feel sorry for that guy that did it. But anyway, it's kind of like insurance. Yeah. Except for, um, usually when you're using insurance, it means something bad has to happen, right? So, you know, here you could be advancing in life. Maybe you're adopting a child, getting married, maybe you wanna a prenup, a postnup. You know, these are things that are everyday things that happen to us. So I'm so glad we were able to help you. I really love our business plans 'cause they help a lot of people. But at the end of the day, I mean, the wealthy wouldn't do anything without having a contract reviewed by an attorney. They wouldn't sign it. I mean, I don't even think they'd sign a birthday card. Right. Unless their attorneys reviewed it. So, but we as everyday middle income Americans, we just are like, yeah, I mean, I read it, it looks good to me. Yep. And they sign it and then they get into trouble. And so that's where I really feel passionate that we live in the freest country in the world, but how free are you if you don't have access to the, you know, system that governs you? The Importance of Legal Access for Everyone And that's why, you know, we ended up like in the mortgage meltdown, right? People didn't know what they were signing. Didn't have counsel, but we give that same power back to the people for literally as little as a dollar a day. And I love that you mentioned the business plans. 'cause I think, you know, when you look at the statistics on small business owners that, you know, you always talk about the big companies, but. The, uh, mid-size little companies are the ones that employ 80% of the people and they're literally one legal situation from going outta business. So we are really good in difficult times, like during the pandemic, um, I thought all my small business owners that had brick and mortars would cancel their program 'cause they're not open. But they were like, no, you were The only thing that helped me know, am I open? Am I not open? Can I ask people if they're sick? What if I have to get out of my lease agreement? How is that gonna work? What if I stop paying, uh, I have a franchise, what if I have to get out of that? So, you know, I think my thing makes all the other insurances work well, because if you're in, if your auto insurance doesn't pay your business insurance doesn't pay your whatever, who are you gonna have to call? Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. And so I always say to people. Okay, so we pay our, our bills, like our mortgage, we pay our, you know, utility bills, we pay, you know, our payroll, whatever. And they all have attorneys, right? That's right. And how do they pay for their attorneys? Us through our mortgage. Yeah, through us. And then when they use the attorneys, who do they use 'em against? Us. So shouldn't we have our own attorneys to really make sure that we're not gonna get taken advantage of and treated unfairly out there. So yes, you're gonna use it in emergencies, but you should use it for everyday things that happen, uh, just to make sure you're doing it right. Yeah, while you were talking, I was like, you know, I, I write purchase contracts and listing agreements and all this stuff, and every time I tell him, I, I sit in front of him, I go, you have the, this is a blank copy of it. You have the legal right to take this to a lawyer and have 'em digest it for you because I can't give you legal advice. You know, in my head right now, I'm like, Hey, I should just tell him, go talk to Legal Shield. Here's a coupon. Go talk to Kai. Make it happen, right? Because it spending 30, 40 minutes having somebody. Have you understand what the ramifications or what the could be or what have you happens on a purchase contract is huge. It's hugely imp important, and I can't give you that advice, advice because I'm not a licensed attorney and I'm not a li licensed tax advisor. So I can't give that kind of advice either. I can say, here are the questions you should ask. Go talk to your tax person. But I can't even do that with a lawyer. I can't say, Hey, these, these are questions you should ask. Hey, I can't tell you anything about it. This is a legal contract. Go talk to a lawyer. None of 'em do. The other thing I was thinking is you guys were talking was, was like, I mean, culturally like the middle class using lawyers, it's just not something that. If they're conditioned to do, or conditioned to do, it's something that you see on tv. It's something you see, uh, in movies it's something for, you know, wealthy people have that law firm that, that represents the family kind of thing. And if we have to get a lawyer, it's 'cause something bad as Somebody's gonna jail or something like that. That's when a lawyer comes into play. And you know, nowadays though, people's financial lives are just so much more complicated than what it was 20, 30 or four years ago. Things are much more complicated now for people. And, um, yeah, I could definitely see how of course, like having some kind of legal asset that you can draw upon to give you some feedback about a decision you needed to make or not make, uh, is critical. I was gonna ask you, uh, Kai, do you? Yeah, but you know, you made me think of something too. It's actually a paradigm shift, right? So like the wealthy, you know, they'll say, Hey listen, this is this guy's card. If you ever get into trouble call this person, they'll help you out. We say, Hey, you know, here's our, our attorney's card. Never call it in case you need it in an absolute emergency. Here's the attorney that I know, and we're changing that. So that's a real. Shift like that in 20 years. I imagine that, yeah, most people are gonna be like, you know, oh, did you call your attorney on that? What? You don't have legal shield? Like, I can't believe it. So I think it's gonna be interesting to see in the next, you know, handful of years, how that all plays out. So, no, that's, that's it. That's right. I think you, you're, you described it even better than I could. It is kind of a paradigm shift around how you will approach legal services. And, um, it should be like a, a automatic thing as opposed to like a last resort. I hope I can afford it thing because I think people probably just don't understand how affordable it can be and, you know, ignorance is bliss. Like they say. It's also really expensive. And so don't be ignorant. Don't go make a decision if you don't have to. The question, the, so that's, that's the reason, Kai. This is the reason why we started financial intelligence. 'cause I know lawyers, I know bankers. I know, I know Patrick. Financial advice, I know me, I know lenders. I know all these different people. Nobody's really talking about all these different ways we're intertwined and how to break down the silos of, of things. 'cause you know, I know a lot about real estate and you know a lot about legal and Patrick knows a lot about financial advising and how to invest money and make it grow, which I have my money with him and his, his. Account with me, or my account with him continues to grow, right? So I ask questions, I ask dumb questions so that people that are afraid to ask those dumb questions would, ask them or wouldn't, you know, they, they're, they'll listen to it. Hopefully they'll, they'll learn something. But the thing is, is. Our culture from me, mid income all the way down. We just don't ask those questions. It's, it's almost like for Boden, you don't talk about it with your family. You don't talk about structuring budgets and how to, how to not live paycheck to paycheck and put away and make an investment and do this and take a little bit of risk. 'cause you need to have risk in life, but you have to have small risk. Right. So anyway, going back to the legal thing, it's, that's mitigating the risk too. Mitigation, just peace of mind. I think that's really cool. Uh, a middle class option for people to be able to reach out and get some affordable legal advice. Where I think most people are really scared to try and get it. Yeah. Because they don't know how much it's gonna cost. Like Right. Or they, they assume it's gonna cost a lot. They have some reason to assume that. 'cause it can. Right. It can. And if you, if you seek it out in a ineffective way, it can be very expensive. And there's a huge gap. Like I think you were alluding to Vita, like there's the people, the haves, right. That can afford it and they know it and they're smart about it. And they're, they have all these access to resources and then there's the ones that are, you know, below broke and they're gonna get, you know, a public defender in case it's a criminal charge and they're gonna get some public assistance for other things, but it's everybody else in between, right. That needs information. Like what you're sharing on this podcast needs, you know, a legal shield plan needs, you know. Needs access to those things because it does, it gets more and more complicated every single day. And quite frankly, with our civil liberties and our civil rights being chipped away a little bit every single day, people need access now more than ever. Sure. You know, if you're enacting your first amendment rights and protesting or something, you may need access to an attorney. And 24 7 too, we give access and I could tell you even. Oprah Winfrey's not gonna have an attorney that maybe she would, that would get up at 3:00 AM and answer a phone call. We have twenty four seven access to attorneys in case of emergencies, arrested, detained, you know, not sure what to do. It's pretty amazing. Can Legal Shield for Families and Special Needs I see if I can put you on a spot a little bit? Sure. Um, see how quick you can, lemme see if I can give you a scenario. You can tell me like how many different ways the legal shield could probably support a family. Oh, I'm looking at it on the website right now. Very nice. Let's say I'm, I'm thinking of some of the families that I work with and some of the scenarios that I come across, I'm trying to put a few together. Say it's a, uh husband and wife, two kids, one kid is special needs five years old. I'm thinking about putting some kind of accounts together to, to, legally protect the, special needs child they have. Mom has a elderly parent who is getting older and. Starting to need support in other ways. And, you know, the parent has a home, has assets, and they don't know where anything's at really. And so, they're trying to figure out, you know, what's the next steps there. They gotta do with, with, with mom, with mom and dad before they they start to, go into a home or something like that. They don't know. They just know it's Coming. They just bought a home themselves. And so now, you know, they're thinking about all the things they have to pay, but my guess is, or my experience tells me there's also illegal side to all this that they should probably need to take a look at too. How would you respond? Yeah. Well, they definitely need a legal plan. No, no, if, ands and buts about it we do have a good, better, best business model when it comes to our personal plan. So, uh, sounds like they would need a personal plan. And the, $49 is our, our premium plan, and that would include a revocable trust. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, so then it's got a $250 copay with that. So, you know, we can't do everything for free for 30 to $49, but we do the unlimited consultation document, review letters, phone calls, and wills, attorney, healthcare directors for free. But if they talk to their law firm and talk to their state planning attorney and say, Hey, you know what the trust would be, you know, the more appropriate instrument, you know, we can help 'em out with that and save a lot of money. Worst case scenario, they need a real specialty trust. 'cause a lot of times special needs kids are gonna need a, a special needs trust for their children. We would do that at a 25% discounted rate, and I've never seen an attorney on sale. So that's from three to four to $5,000. We would do that at a 25% discounted rate. And then with that mother, um, they would need to have their own membership because they might wanna put together a op, have attorney, a healthcare directive as well to make sure that, you know, they can make decisions on their behalf. Uh, and they also might have questions about downsizing, transitioning into a senior living place, and have those contracts and documents reviewed. Right. So that's why that parent needs to get it done. Um, because once there's any kind of an issue with dementia or Alzheimer's, we're not able to do anything now because they wouldn't be able to sign off on that. So it gets really tricky at that point. But yeah, there's so many different ways that from state planning to family law. You know, it was interesting. I had a member who had two kids, one with special needs. They were gonna the same school, and they wouldn't let the special needs kid ride on the same bus as the older kid. While it was creating quite a bit of a problem, because it really needed to be with his brother on the bus. And the, they wouldn't let him, well, one letter from their law firm, they were able to put the special needs kid on the bus with his brother, and literally everything was fine. Do you know what I mean? So sometimes it's a motivational letter that is required to make people just do the right thing, um, when no one's looking. I mean, I love helping people like that too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Even just any one of those trust would, could cost a a a lot of money to put together, uh, all of a sudden if you're not quite prepared for it and doing it when you're not. Doing it the last minute. When it's urgent. It's never like the right way to do that. No, and I, I tease people, I say, just because you do your will or your trust or whatever you're gonna do doesn't mean you're gonna die. Because I think there's like this thing like if I do it and it's just, it's smart. My mother passed away without one and was outta state and she didn't have a ton of assets. She lived in a trailer park and, you know, worked at fast food, had a little car, but she was a member. Never got around to getting her will done and a simple will would've done it. And so it created a lot of having. For me, you know, I had to get, I got a great referral attorney, all of our attorneys average 20 years of experience. And instead of, this was eight years ago, November instead of 2000. 'cause it was super simple. I got charged my 25% discount. It was $1,500 and he was awesome. Like he knew the mobile home park and how dirty they were. 'cause they filed abandonment paperwork on me 'cause I wasn't on the title. And I had 45 days during the holidays to prove who I was or they were gonna commandeer the trailer. Wow. Pretty dirty. And that 24 7 access was very helpful because I was gonna go up there. I had an appointment from California to Oregon to go meet with that probate attorney and bring him all the paperwork, well, all the paperwork I needed to prove who I was, was in the trailer. And the neighbor lady, he said at like 11 o'clock at night, they padlocked the door, Kai, you're not gonna be able to get in. And I was beside myself. I, I was gonna get there at 8:00 AM I was gonna grab the paperwork, go to the attorney's office. And I realized that I had 24 7 access to an attorney. So I called my law firm and they said, do you know you could call the sheriff? I said, I had no idea. So I called the sheriff. I told the sheriff what was going on. He said, let me get back to you. So now it's about midnight. I'm still leaving in the morning. The Manager's Office Incident He comes back and he says, well, I went to that manager's office at the trailer park, knocked on her door with my flash. I loved that. Can you just see it? Bang, bang. And he said, I let her know that if that was not, if the padlock was not off the door by the time you got there, that I was gonna give you my personal cell phone number and I would cite and arrest her at the scene. So guess what was off the door by the time I got there. Oh yeah. I get goosebumps when I think about that because it wasn't about the stuff, uh, it wasn't about the trailer. It's, but the stuff inside the trailer. Right. So I ended up with my mom's wedding ring. My grandpa's wedding ring and all these pictures. The trailer wasn't worth anything. It was a seventies trailer, but it was the fact that I wanted the stuff in there and the neighbor lady had lost, uh, had passed away and the kids had lost their house. 'cause they did the same thing to them and they didn't have the money. The time, the. Legal shield, right. To be able to go fight them and get that stuff. And so I just went Aaron Brockovich on them. I'm like, because I could, I had money and time and legal shield. The Importance of Legal Protection So you just never know when something's gonna happen. The unexpected. It's better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Trusts and Estate Planning And even just the trust work, like having a living trust or family trust, like these basic things, which I think there's more education on that stuff now than there used to be 20, 30 years ago. Especially with the internet and everything. And those things cost money to do and why not do it somewhere where you can bundle these things and uh, get significant savings. I'm guessing that living trust and family trust, or is that also something you guys help with? So we would do that either at a 25% discount, like I said, depending on what plan they were on. Or we'll do a revocable trust on our premium plan for $250. Copay. Yes. So not everything's free, all included in the membership. So if it goes beyond the letters, phone calls, con, um, consultation, like we'll do after 180 days, uncontested, divorces, adoption separations, and name changes, annulments, postnup, prenups. But if there's a messy divorce right for a dollar a day, we can't do that for free. So we would give the 25% discounted rate. They would contract with those attorneys and work with them. But I think you get so much value 'cause think about how much paperwork and stuff and how much, questions and things you could get answered before you actually had to hire one. Whether it's immigrations, right? Ask your questions, you're eventually gonna have to hire one. But yeah, you know, you can get pretty far and save a lot of money 'cause you're gonna have all that free advice and stuff until you get to that point where you're just gonna have to hire one. Legal Services for Small Businesses Incorporating, starting a business, understanding what legal structure you should do also. That would be my next question, is how that works on the business side, because you have business plan. Like how does that, so we have the scenario again, like why would somebody get that and how would they start using that? So it's the same concept. We have a good, better, best business model. So it depends on if they're in state, outta state, how many users they wanna have. If they're worried about being sued, um, we have some lawsuit protection on there. It's a hundred hours that they can get in case they're frivolously sued. That's incredible. And like I said, a lot of the small business owners. That I have written this plan for, have used it. And, you know, I have gyms, restaurants a part store, things like that. So you would think, gosh, the parts store, how are they ever gonna get sued? Mm-hmm. Well, it was one of those, a DA frivolous lawsuits, right? So, mm-hmm. You know, we just don't know. And I think that there's a target on the back of a business owner because they think they make all this money and they don't know that. Like a lot of times my poor business owner's burn rate is 10, $20,000 a month. They're barely paying themselves. Yeah. And so I just love, and often oftentimes with small, medium sized businesses, their margin is about 10 to 15%. So it's not like they get their muster money bags, right? Yeah. They're trying to figure out how to make it work and live their American dream. And you know, that's the thing. You said 80% of the businesses come from small business and the just the margin itself is it, and it's hard because if you got a lawsuit and you are cracking out 15, 10, 15% margin on that, that's your profit. In case you don't know what that is, you are out of business, you are broke, you're bankrupt. Yeah. Yeah. And that, that is true. And that's why I, I say when we started this conversation, my small business owners are one legal situation from going outta business. Yeah. The Value of Legal Consultation And so I have a moral obligation, in my opinion, to one, show it to everybody so they know there's a better way. But number two, my favorite business is my favorite restaurants. I want them to stay in business so I can keep eating there frequently, my gyms and things like that. So I feel like I just, you know, I'm not. Trying to sell them. I educate them. So I'll hand 'em my card and be like, Hey, if I can ever be of help to you, you can basically put us on retainer for under $200 a month. And that way if you've got nothing more than consultation, you got your money's worth. But we do a lot more. And so, um, I'm really, really proud of that business plan. So there are some other companies that can offer legal plans to employees as a voluntary benefit, but no one can do it on a personal level. And no one has been able to figure out how to price point it to small business owners because that's our, our highest retention. I mean, 90% retention on those services because they should be talking to attorneys and they're not, they're Googling it. They're chat GPT and contracts. They're asking friends like, Hey, what did you do when this happened to you? Because like you said, they're so lean, they don't have 500 to a thousand dollars an hour to fork out, just to find out. You know, what's, what should be the best move? So yes, like incorporating. So I got incorporated with LegalShield for $450. It wasn't free, but it was great. I got advice, I got consultation that didn't cost me anything. They said, check with your CPAI did. They agreed with the, attorney, the structure that I needed, I went back to them and asked them to incorporate me, and they did. And it was like a one and done. So if I was a do it yourselfer, I could have done it for free. They would've told me and helped me walk through the process. But I'm like, I don't, I mean, if I'm a physician, I could probably take out my own appendix, but why would I do that? That doesn't make sense. Right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Let the experts kinda do some of that work for you. Yeah. So I think that the business plans are No-brainers. Yeah. They just don't, A better way. We gotta educate them. The, thing is, you know, it's like right now, my, my daughters were in band and the band every year, they're, now they're graduated, they're off at college now, but they're the, high school's coming back to me and asking me for a donation, put my name in the, you know, little sponsor thing or whatever. The mindset of these small business owners, a lot of 'em are like I, can't afford it this year. I just can't afford, I can't afford 300 bucks. To sponsor a school. Yep. And in my head it's like, how can you not afford to sponsor a school and put your name in there and put goodwill out there? It's the same mindset of the, our culture of mid and low income people where they just don't talk about money. How can you not talk about money? How can you not share ideas? I'm. I, I I, listen to my friends who are on the left and to the right, and they tell me how bad Trump is and how great Trump is and all this other stuff. And I don't, I, I want to hear what they have to say, but when it comes to money, nothing, nobody understands how to have that conversation unless they're wealthy. And it, it's the same thing with the legal mindset and having a trust. If you own a house, you should have a trust period. Yeah. And that's, the whole reason why we started this thing, is just to have conversations so we can throw it out there and have people get intelligent or at least get a little smarter about what's going on. Yeah. Even just to trust for a property in a, for a family alone, based on what you shared, Kai. Personal Stories and Legal Lessons I mean, that, that pays for the service itself with the personal level. I, think I've shared this story before, but my grandmother, when she passed away her home in Los Angeles been paid off for years, but they, you know, they didn't have anything in place. And, uh, the. Now this is 2004. And so in 2004 money, it was like $18,000 to, go through probate when there was nothing goes to anybody, but just a still had to go through that process. It didn't matter. And that was $18,000 in 2004 for a very clean, very simple, nothing going on, you know, situation, but had to go through probate and that's what the cost was. Well, they got off lucky because sometimes they take 40, 50% of the value of the estate. Wow. Wow. If you're in probate, if you die in test date, you can lose tons of money. And I'm not saying that to, you know, scare people. No, for sure. It's absolutely possible. 22 years ago when I first got in this business, I did a little deep dive and I sampled all these different homes because I can see the title and who owns it? Only 5% of the people who owned a house at that time. This is 20 years ago. I haven't done it since. 5% had their house registered as a, under the trust, under their trust. Wow. Wow. 5%. That means 95% of the people, if they died today, they would die and have to go through probate. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there's some staggering statistics. It's like 80% of people either don't have one or it's not updated. And I don't like to insult people either. So when I ask them about sensitive questions, I'm like, you know, when was the last time you updated your estate planning instruments? And then inevitably they say, I don't have one. So I don't wanna, even though statistically they don't have it, I don't wanna say that. So I think there's some sensitivity around it. I think there's, you know, some superstition around it. I think there's, um, you know, I'm gonna live forever around it. Yeah. And I get it. You don't wanna face into, you know, what does it look like after? But we all saw, you know, life tomorrow is not promised. You know? That's right. It is just being smart. You don't wanna leave. I say it's the last love letter that you're gonna leave your family. Oh, that's great. I like that. That's, good. Yeah. And I'll also tell you, if you don't have an estate plan, the state has one for you and you may not like it. Yep. If you have minor children like it, there has been some horrible stories, so. Um, I have one of my associates who showed it to, uh, a relative of theirs and he was a stay at home dad and the mother was the breadwinner. Went to work one day and didn't come home, had a terrible car accident, two little kids, and he thought for sure she didn't have her will done that he would keep the kids. Well, her parents fought him for custody saying he was an unfit parent 'cause he didn't have income coming in and they won. Wow. So you know, I get goosebumps again when I think about that. Like if they had just had a simple will, yes, it would've been better than nothing. But that guardianship is really important. And when you have teenage kids like Vito does that are in college, you need to get a power of attorney because if anything were to happen to them. You can't make decisions for those children even though you're paying for their college, even though they're dependent on you. Yeah, because they're over the age of 18. Right. I mean, I just had a gal who's, you know, had a little accident. Her kid was on a bike and got hit and at college, and she was like, yeah, I couldn't get any information. Yep. As a matter of fact, when your child turns 18, you cannot make medical decisions for him, so you have to take him to a lawyer. That's, I'm saying you're about hundred bucks and you say, end of life decisions or whatever. If I get in a coma or this or this is what I want to have happen. It's not your decision anymore. It's your child's, your adult child's decision. They have to go and tell the lawyer how to fill that out and they'll that's what, legal Shield does, right? I mean, it's Correct. I mean, and that would be, um. Free or nominal cost, like 20 bucks to get that done for those adult children. 'cause we do cover kids living at home up to the age of 26, never married full-time college students, also up to the age of 26, never married. So they can have access to those services as well. But yeah, they need that medical director if you need that power of attorney. So I, am your perfect demographic because we had an Jill's parent, uh, mom died. Seven days after her grandfather died, both of 'em had dementia. Oh, wow. He, she had early onset Alzheimer's, and this was like 8, 9, 10 years ago. And I freaked out. I started looking around, I got myself a, a trust before we knew you and we had this trust done. The Emotional Impact of Estate Planning And Percy, the grandfather, how to trust. He had everything written out exactly how he wanted things handled. He had a mobile home, he had cash, he had gold, he had all this other stuff. She took care of everything. Donna, the mother, she died, she was 56 50, so like my age right now, she had dementia and early onset Alzheimer's. They were so unprotected. It didn't ruin them financially. It hurt them horribly badly. And I think he finally, once, once Donna die died, they started making roads back. But I mean, it's just such a financial offset that you're it's. It's, imagine being young and your husband goes to war and he gets killed. God forbid you know that, but that happens, right? That cloud of war, that cloud, that fog that goes over your brain, you don't, I don't know what to do. Who do I go to? What do I do? Yeah. That's what a trust does. It helps you say, this is what I want you to do after I die. With my stuff, with the kids, with the dogs, with the everything. And it's imperative. PE because we're dying every day. We're all of a I mean, within 18 months, I had six people I knew die. Oh, holy cow. I just had a business partner, 49 years old. I was just hung out with him. Had lunch, the other, and I'm like. You know, you just don't know. And I'm glad you also, and first of all, I'm sorry you went through that. That's, terrible. But you know, I think people often forget about their pets because every time I'll see, yeah. I'll see something on next door that says, Hey, so and so, you know, old lady passed away. Her pets are gonna go to the Humane Society, do you want 'em? It's just like, you know, so, you know, you wanna make sure you set aside some money and find out who's gonna be taking care of those so that they have enough funds to take care of your pet and, uh, make sure they know they're gonna get your pet. So there's a lot of conversations that need to happen surrounding estate planning and what's great is we have a will questionnaire. And so our members, if they just do the simple, will they fill that out? Um, they send it to their law firm. Their law firm calls them, ask them a lot of questions. They help draft 'em. Sometimes they're up to 30 pages 'cause you can have lots of kids and lots of assets and put, you know, certain things in certain places. And then within about 10 days, they get it drafted, it gets mailed back to them. Hard copy. They need to, um, do a couple of things. Number one, they need to make sure they get it notarized, and then number two is that they need to put it in a safety deposit box. And number three is they need to make copies of it and tell people where it is, because if you pass away and nobody knows where it is, which is what happened to a friend of mine in May, so he said, oh yeah, I got it done with Legal Shield. I got my will done, I got my will done, and we could not find it. And it went to his brother and he had said to me before, like, my brother's irresponsible with money. I wanna make sure the kids get it, that he doesn't get it. So the brother's kids, but because we couldn't find anything. It went all to the brother. So you don't, it, it's not just enough to do it. You've gotta make sure it's readily available if somebody needs it too, to be able to execute it. So you got nowhere to get it at. Yeah. I mean, what's the, what's the point of doing it if nobody can get to it? Yeah. Um, and I think going back to what you were saying about the paradigm shift, I think a lot of middle class. Families, they hear this estate planning thing. It just sounds like some it's not something that they need to do. A state, I don't have an estate. I got this house here, or I got this condo. You know, people don't really, um, equivalate estate planning with their situation. They think that's for other people in higher tax brackets with other problems, and it's not them. And that's not the case at all. Everybody can greatly benefit from estate planning. Now let's not get it twisted. It's not like they're rich to take care of their business either. I think it was. Michael Jackson and Prince the main to, to name some famous folks who didn't have their stuff together when they passed away. It's, it has been a problem. And so, um, it's not so something. Yeah, I know for sure. And there's lots of kids coming out of the woodwork, I guess, for prince's stuff. So, yeah. I mean, I don't think it's, it's, it's more pronounced in middle income Americans, but it's certainly happens at all socioeconomical levels because, you know, it is something people don't like to face into and you've gotta make decisions. Right. And like I said, you know, if you don't make those, the state will and you just may not like it. Yeah. Yeah. That's how it's gonna blow out for you and your family and your loved ones. So just like I said, it's that last love letter. You're gonna leave to the family and I've seen people break up. I'm not kidding. 'cause it's such a traumatic time over like a gun collection a China collection. I'm like, you know, that would've been so easily solvable. Yeah. Let alone if there was no medical directive, so we had a situation where that wasn't in place and the two brothers fought about do we, you know, keep 'em on life support, do we not? And they, to this day aren't speaking because neither one of them could agree. So the only person whose opinion mattered was the one who couldn't talk. Yeah. I've, I've seen where two sisters are fighting it out so bad. And this happened to me. It was my assistant back when I was in publishing her. My assistant's sister was treating my assistant so horribly that she committed suicide. Holy cow. Oh my gosh. She jumped into a closet, got a cart briquette thingy, and lit it on fire and asphyxiated herself. Yep. Oh goodness. Because it was just mental anguish over the probate and the estate of their mother. And it was, it was like the most horrible thing that I've ever seen. And how could somebody treat somebody that, and it happens, it happens over and over and over again. And it just happened a couple years ago. I sold a house brother was the trustor, the trustee. Mother had, cancer. She passed away before, before she passed away. The sister came in under duress. The mother was on drugs, on pain pills, et cetera. Forced her to add her to the trust as trustee as co-trustee. And then there was a long legal battle because of it. There's nothing you can do to protect that. So you have to understand what the legal ramifications are. And they just settled it out, I wanna say like February. Wow. Barely. Yeah. Yeah. And I was stuck in the middle 'cause I had to sell the house and I was like. I'm like, I'm not playing favorites. I, I can't play favorites because, but you go talk to your lawyer, you go talk to your lawyer. You tell me what happens after you figure it out. But they were like, trying to get me sucked in and, well, he said this and you Should. I'm like, I'm not doing any of that. I'm not gonna play your stupid games. Yeah. It's emotional time for sure. When somebody's, you know, in hurting like that, they, they don't always make the best decision. So it's better to help them, you know, leave those decisions, help them make, I'm gonna say most of our conversations talk about these, a lot of these bigger life events that happen, which is like, it's huge if you don't have great legal protection or things set up correctly. But I think one thing you talked about at the beginning that I don't wanna gloss over, I think it's really cool, and I know we're kind of running out a little bit of time here. Is, uh, just the having the asset to call on a document to get some feedback, got a legal question. Like, that's huge, man. For most people just to be able to know they have something they can call, they have the service they're paying for, and so, you know, I would imagine most people like, well, I better, I need to use this because I'm paying for it. Right. I bet the value is just ginormous once you start to get to figure out how much, how helpful that could be anyways for it to be. Yeah. And the good, better, best business model you can pick how many documents you wanna be able to have reviewed and um, you know, but I think just if we got nothing more than just consultation, we got worth because there's so many times where. You know, like our neighbor, our fence was falling down. Like, who's responsible? How does that work? Who's gotta pay for it? Yeah. You know, they're nonresponsive. You know, what, how does that work? Do you put a lien on the house? So property owners have a lot of more questions sometimes from contract and not finishing the job, doing the right thing to reviewing those contracts, right. HOA stuff, h OAS stuff. Um, you know, reviewing some of those to see, 'cause those can be really dicey. Yeah, HOAs can be dicey, but you know, I was gonna say, um, it's really important too that you have a good agent and so, you know, thank you. Yeah. And all, all aspects. A good real estate agent, right? A good financial advisor and a good legal shield agent. Um, because they can help you pick out the plan that's best for you. Vito can help you pick out the right house. Final Thoughts and Contact Information So I do own a franchise through Legal Shield. So if you want to, um, work with me directly, I would go to connect with kai.com. I've been doing this for 24 years and I can really help you zero in on what plan works for you. 'cause there's three personal, three business. We have identity theft, we have a home-based business supplement, a gun owner's plan, a ride share plan, like we have a little bit of something for everybody. And you really wanna work with a good agent that not only knows the programs, but also knows the attorneys. So I can reach out and like, Hey, what happened to this situation? We need to investigate. Right. Um, and a lot of times, um, people don't like what the law says and I can't fix that. I can fix a lot of other things with that I can't fix. Right. That's funny. Yeah. That's awesome. Again, your email is connect with Kai, C-O-N-N-E-C-T, with w that's my website. So, um, I connect with kai.com. You can book an appointment there. You can watch a video on Legal Shield. You can see where I network. You can see my phone number, my social. Everything that you would kind of need to know about me would be on connect with Kai k i.com and then my email would just be my name, full name@gmail.com, so Kai Dearing at gmail. Okay. We'll be sure to get that out too. Yeah, everybody wants to follow up. Right on you guys. I love what you're up to. Thank you for doing this. I mean, this is so valuable. To have resources, information, and taboo type topics that you're just not getting anywhere else. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Appreciate it. Right back at you. What a great service. Spread the word and we'll spread your word out and make sure that we get people to know about you more. And yeah, and thank you so much for the opportunity to share. I'm really on a mission to make sure that everybody's protected and knows what their rights are and has access when they need it. So just appreciate you helping me get the word out. Anytime you wanna walk on and do this, please let us know. Sounds like a plan. All thank you. I'll send you the recording.