Meet Jason Lindamood

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jason Lindamood. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jason below.

Jason, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?
That’s such a great question. I think, like a lot of us, my resilience comes from having an internal drive that — no matter what roadblocks are in our way — we persevere until we achieve what we set out to do. And I think that drive, at least for me, was developed through dealing with adversity. I realized that I had a choice: I could stay down after whatever hardship or challenge had presented itself, or I could get back up and keep pushing forward.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
At the Lindamood Law Firm we focus on a niche of the law that’s commonly known as “Estate Planning and Probate”.

The term “estate planning” may be a bit confusing to folks because of the word “estate”.

It may cause us to think of either “something to do with real estate or land” or even some type of law having to do with only wealthy individuals (since “estate” may conjure up visions of palatial mansions or seaside villas…).

It’s a fancy term used to describe the area of law where an attorney sits down with a client (no matter their socioeconomic status…) and they simply work together to develop a Will, or a Trust, or other documents that may serve to protect their families if they were to become incapacitated or upon their death.

Let’s get even more transparent than that: We ALL technically have an “estate”.

What I mean by that is this: our “estate” is comprised of anything that we own.

Maybe that’s simply a checking account and some personal belongings.

Or maybe, if we’re fortunate, it’s a home, a large portfolio of different investments, a retirement account, some rental properties, and an expensive art collection.

Each one of those would still be, technically, our “estate”.

This area of law that I focus on is comprised of helping individuals and families plan for the future in terms of where they would want their assets to go, to whom they would go to, and the best way to accomplish those goals.

It’s been said regarding Wills that “whether we know it or not we ALL have a Will already in place”.

What’s meant by that is if we die without a Will the State of Texas has statutes and laws which will serve to direct the probate court as to ‘who gets what’.

In certain circumstances that may work out just fine in the end but, if I had my preference, I’d want every adult to control the disposition of their own property – again, regardless of “how much” or “how little” we have.

At the very minimum I would love to see every adult have the following in place:

(1) A well-designed, robust Will as the foundation of their Estate Plan;

(2) Financial Durable Power of Attorney – which allows a loved one or trusted person to step into our shoes and handle financial transactions on our behalf should we ever end up incapacitated for a period of time (Ex: we’re unconscious in the hospital and we still need our bills paid and maybe our spouse isn’t on all of our accounts, etc…);

(3) Medical Power of Attorney – this allows, again, a loved one or trusted individual to make healthcare decisions on our behalf should we become incapacitated and unable to make them for ourselves;

(4) HIPAA Authorization – this document allows our trusted folks to acquire our medical records for us and “cut through the red tape” if we’re in the hospital and our current doctors need to see previous medical records from our previous medical providers to help them determine a course of treatment;

(5) Directive to Physicians – this is coarsely known as the “pull-the-plug” document and simply lets our family and medical providers know our wishes should something tragic happen to us and we end up in a vegetative state with no brain activity and no chance of ever regaining consciousness.

These documents are important for all of us, but if we have kids they become even MORE vital.

Looking back, I think my experience as a trial lawyer has helped me in understanding a few important, core principles that have translated well into my Estate Planning practice:

(1) Listening – One of the most important skills I try to impart on young lawyers is to be quiet and simply “listen” to the client. It’s amazing how much clarity we can glean about what a person needs when we simply listen;

(2) “Anticipating the traps” – Again, drawing from being a long-time trial attorney, I tend to tilt the prism and view things in terms of how a Judge would rule. Thinking “3 or 4 chess moves ahead” when I’m designing and drafting documents for my clients has served me well in, for lack of a better term, “future-proofing” the estate plan since we’ve planned for almost every reasonable contingency;

(3) Patience – taking the time to communicate with the client to the point that everyone is completely on the same page. In my practice I never begin drafting documents until we’ve taken the time to determine what’s best for the client from a “treetop view” level, then drill farther down going from the macro to the micro to the point that every “T” is crossed and every “I” is dotted in terms of designing that foundation we spoke about earlier.

This area of the law is something I’m passionate about. The best part of my week is, and it may sound overly simplistic, the communication and collaboration I have with clients in assisting them by creating something that is going to make their families’ lives easier moving forward.

And the other area of my practice, the Probate portion, tends to go hand-in-hand with “Estate Planning” in the sense that while we’re planning for the future in designing a Will plan for someone, we may then at some point need to help guide the family through the Probate court process should something ever happen to that individual.

And having a valid, robust, well-engineered Will greatly simplifies the Probate process for the family and can almost completely reduce any complexities or litigation that we sometimes see portrayed in movies or TV shows.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
As I made the decision to open Lindamood Law Firm one of the driving factors was being able to create a culture of connection and closeness with clients that is, unfortunately, extremely difficult to replicate at large law firms. I’d say, having been on the inside for so long, that it’s almost impossible.

What I mean by that is, in part, authentically connecting to my clients and developing relationships on a personal level that transcends the legal work I’m doing for them at that moment.

For instance, they know that they can always reach out if they need, say, a recommendation for a lawyer in a different field — and I’ll do my best to give them some names and options since that’s sometimes better than throwing a dart at the proverbial board and “hoping we find someone good”.

It also means understanding that we’re all, when we stop and think about it, simply trying to make it through life and, if needed, sometimes that means having a phone conversation with a client at 8pm on a random weeknight.

(1) Being authentic, (2) treating people the way I’d want someone to treat my own family if the roles were reversed, (3) and doing what we say we’re going to do in the timeframe we say we’re going to do it.

Those are all things that are core principles of my firm.

I’m also a big believer in focusing on something and becoming exceedingly good at whatever that ‘something’ may be.

My sole focus is Estate Planning and Probate.

Full stop.

There are enough complexities and contingencies in this area of the law where I wouldn’t be able to serve clients to the level of my own expectations if I also practiced in other areas.

I’ll use another analogy: In general (and there may be exceptions…) think about which type of establishment we’d feel more comfortable having dinner at: (A) a restaurant that knows it’s identity – whether it be an Italian restaurant, a Mexican restaurant, or a nice steakhouse, etc…or (B) a restaurant that advertises that it serves sushi, Italian, Korean barbecue, amazing breakfast pancakes, seafood, as well as being a tremendous steakhouse.

I’d suggest that a restaurant that fashions itself as an expert in multiple (yet vastly different) types of cuisines probably doesn’t know it’s identity.

And if we don’t have an established identity about “who we are” or “what we do” then it’s going to be extremely difficult to even be ‘proficient’ at any one of those things, much less offer a service that continuously seeks to overperform the expectations of our clients.

I realize that I couldn’t be the best attorney for my clients if I tried to juggle a firm that handled the following: “Personal injury, immigration, divorces, landlord/tenant disputes, corporate issues…oh, and Estate Planning/Probate”.

Providing a higher level of legal services is what makes sense to me.

It seems like common sense (even though it sometimes appears as if “common sense is a lot less common these days”…) but I couldn’t envision practicing law any other way when opening the firm.

And, in order to do that, I needed to determine what my “occupational identity” was going to be – and I’m extremely fortunate to have found it as well as love what I do.

I feel very grateful to be able to serve my clients in an area of the law that is singularly-focused, to operate a firm where the culture is truly client-based on a personal level, and I plan on continuing to serve the community for many years to come.

Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?
Again, such a great question.

When there are those times in life when it seems like it’s a deluge of things happening that cause that overwhelming feeling, I try to slow everything down in my mind.

What I mean by that is if I’m able to mentally take a step back and assess the big picture (as if we’re looking at the situation(s) from a 30,000 foot view) then I can usually begin to slowly figure out potential solutions to the issue (or issues).

Sometimes a solution isn’t available and, at that point, I can at least begin to process things and take an inventory of “what can I control” versus “what is out of my control”, and go from there.

And for the things out of my control — if I can emotionally and mentally come to grips with that — then it seems to make it a bit easier to deal with in my experience.

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