From West Point to Your Family’s Future: My Mission to Make Estate Planning Accessible

Hey there! If you’re reading this, you’re taking the first steps on this journey with us. We’re excited to have you with us, and I hope that you stick around.

First, let me extend the warmest welcome to everyone who’s joining me on this new leg of the journey. Whether you stumbled upon this blog by accident or you’ve been patiently waiting for me to finally get my act together (hi mom) and start sharing more about what I do, I’m genuinely thrilled you’re here.

I also need to take a moment to express my heartfelt gratitude. The support I’ve received from family, co-workers, former and current clients, and other attorneys in the Golden Triangle as I’ve pursued my passion for estate planning has been nothing short of incredible. From referrals to kind words to simply trusting me with your family’s most important decisions—thank you. You’ve made this dream of specializing in estate planning not just possible, but deeply fulfilling.

You see, I’m not just passionate about the law (though I do get a little giddy about a well-crafted trust document—don’t judge me). I’m passionate about building relationships with each of you and serving this community that has given me so much. I was born and raised here. I went to college twenty minutes down the road in Starkville and still attend every Mississippi State sporting event that I can. West Point is a small town, but it does not for vibrancy and vitality. And that’s exactly what this blog is about: creating a space where we can talk about legal family planning in a way that doesn’t put you to sleep. And believe me, this is important, and not just because it’s my area of practice. But the scary thing?

Nobody is talking about this.

That’s not just from personal experience. The numbers back it up.

How We Got Here

As any young enterprising businessman is apt to do in this day and age, I have been approached by/consulted with (cough solicited cough) a number of digital marketing firms/SEO auditing companies over the past few months to see how to increase engagement with our website. We have a great social media team and marketing company, but for whatever reason there was just a disconnect with traffic and social media impressions and clicks on the website.

They ran diagnostics on the number of searches since January of 2020 on all major search engines for “Estate Planning Attorney in Mississippi” and several variations of that phrase along with searches for ancillary documents that would be included in an Estate Plan.

That’s more than five and a half years of data equating to less than 300 searches. I’m sure if I had included “will” in that search, the numbers would have skyrocketed. I left that out intentionally, because I needed to see just how big of an information vacuum Mississippians are living in, at least from what this data set could tell me.

It matches up with the conversations I have at the grocery store, out at Left Field Lounge, at the gym. Nobody has taken it upon themselves to inform Mississippians what an Estate truly is, and what the cost of not planning truly is. And if nobody is doing that, nothing changes until somebody leads the charge. I feel a deep sense of responsibility to be that somebody for y’all.

In the weeks to come, I’ll break down common myths surrounding Estate Planning, the consequences of adhering to those myths, and what you can do to avoid those pitfalls.

This blog is just the beginning of that conversation. As you can see, there are far too many of us who don’t know that this is a problem. It is my hope that we can begin to change that, one family and one plan at a time.

Thanks for reading my first blog. I hope you’ve taken something away from this. I want this to be the way I speak to a lot of you in a more personal way while still educating and empowering my family, friends, and clients. Feel free to share to others who you feel might benefit from this blog by subscribing at our website.

Here’s to many more conversations ahead!

– SSR