Few questions for some of you guys with Trust?

Which route did you go? I was thinking about doing a standard revocable trust and am 75 hours into law school so I was hoping it would be something I could handle. I talked to a lawyer that specializes in NFA trust last night in Fl., who has done several NFA trust for people in La.

He gave me a laundry list of why a standard revocable trust is a bad idea and kept talking about I was putting all my family at risk if I died and they didn't know how to handle the NFA stuff. It seems like I could just put the information with the items in my safe right?

I really want to do it myself to save some cash (this guy wants 600), but don't want to do anything that would get me in trouble legally (so the BAR committee prohibits me from practicing) or that would get anyone in my family in trouble later.

I don't think there is anything named an NFA trust but that is what they call their version.

I'm waiting on a copy of a trust the lawyer from Florida prepared to review. My guess is that it does not comply with the Louisiana Trust Code. Our Trust Code is different from the other 49 states.

Most revocable trusts terminate at your death. Your heirs (called residuary beneficiaries in trust lingo) would inherit the class 3 item from the trust at your death. Since the trust had the class 3 stamp your heirs/residuary beneficiaries/family would own the class 3 item without the stamp. Simple solution: provide the trust does not terminate at your death and that your heirs/residuary beneficiaries/family become successor trustees of the trust. Then after you die (or if you become senile,etc) the trust still owns the item and as successor trustees they can do any and everything you did with the class 3 item, sell it, use it or just hold it. Louisiana does not allow perpetual trusts but that's another story. Suffice it to say appropriate language can be put in the trust so that no one will get in trouble after you die.

Since you are in law school you get free Westlaw. Look up the Westlaw Louisiana Treatise on Trusts and read how they work and how our trust code differs from the other 49 states. Then call $600 boy back and tell him that you are available on a contract basis to be his Louisiana student law clerk and for $75 an hour you will review his trust, do the necessary research and provide him with a memo on how his trust needs to be modified to comply with Louisiana law.