St. Louis, MO estate & probate attorney Martha Brown shares her advice for someone who’s thinking about creating an estate plan. She believes that estate planning has long been viewed too narrowly, with most people focusing solely on ensuring their money goes to the right people after they die. To her, estate planning is far more holistic than that. What has become even more important in her view is determining who will care for someone when they can no longer care for themselves—both in terms of personal and financial decisions.

She emphasizes that this kind of planning takes careful thought and shouldn’t be treated as a one-time event. Instead, she sees estate planning as an ongoing process that evolves alongside life’s changes, requiring regular updates to ensure it reflects a person’s wishes for both illness and death.