Estate Planning Is ‘The Next Frontier’ for Advisors: Steve Lockshin

What else should be considered?

The other part of estate planning is tax minimization. The legal profession is extremely manual and doesn’t really leverage technology.

We’re making accessible to lawyers the pieces they typically don’t have: updating a client’s balance sheet continuously, having their documents all in one place and updated, staying on top of changing laws, helping them digest the documents and coming up with solutions.

Please describe your client base.

It’s the entire spectrum, ranging from solo practitioners of law firms to small RIAs to large financial institutions, such as Vanguard.

In a previous interview, you said that advisors argue that computers can’t do estate planning. You called that “nonsense” because “it’s rules-based decision-making.” So now Vanilla is doing it. Right?

Yes. One of the things done manually that will soon be fully automated is reviewing documents.

Vanilla pulls out all the important information and organizes it. What used to take an hour has been cut down to 10 minutes. When fully operational, it will take an instant, I’d say.

Five years ago, you told me that automated advice would bring “a major depletion of human advisors” and “avoid conflicts of interest.” Still think so?

Yes. Technology will separate the wheat from the chaff. For about five years now, in some cases, it’s become almost indistinguishable to talk to a computer [vs. a human].

And now with AI, computers can say “umm” and “mmm” [as if thinking and listening]. They can detect tone and emotion.

The only difference is that humans put the information into the computer, it spits out the answer and a human interprets it for the client.

Prominent people, including F. William McNabb, former Vanguard CEO; NBA legend Michael Jordan; and Jason Wenk, founder and CEO of Altruist, are investors in Vanilla. What prompted them to get involved?

Michael Jordan has been a client for a very, very long time. [He was] interested in backing what we were doing because [he] has benefited from all the estate planning I’ve done for him.

I met Bill McNabb when he was doing due diligence on another company, and we started to talk about it. I was already in the process of working with Vanguard.

Jason Wenk’s board and our board are almost identical. And Bill is on both boards.

So there’s a lot of overlap among the companies.

Why did you name the firm Vanilla?

The day we [opened], I used the term “vanilla” [while] talking to the crew: “It’s all vanilla planning. We don’t do anything that’s incredibly unique. It’s just understanding how it all fits together,” I said.

When I came back from lunch, they told me, “We have a name for the company: Vanilla.”

I was like, “I love it.”

Are you still the head of AdvicePeriod, which you co-founded and is now a part of Mariner Wealth Advisors?

Yes. I’m a “concierge doctor” when it comes to financial advisory.

I deal with very wealthy people with very special circumstances, and we charge them a fixed fee.