Being in Business is a Funny Thing
- Getting Out is Not!

Being in Business is a Funny Thing - Getting Out is Not! may be purchased at the Thomas M. Cooley Law School Bookstore by calling (517) 371-5140 or stop on in. Your total purchase price will be a contribution to the Howard Soifer Memorial Lecture Series in Sports and Entertainment Law.

"I did not have the pleasure of knowing Howard Soifer personally, but I have a great amount of respect for his contributions to our community and the lives of the people who knew him. The Howard Soifer Memorial Lecture Series in Sports and Entertainment Law is an important resource provided by Thomas M. Cooley Law School. It is evidence of the invaluable guidance that Howard gave to his business associates, clients, family, and friends. I hope that these contributions will not only be of value to funding lectures, but will also serve as a reminder to all of us of how important integrity and compassion are in all aspects of our lives."

Jordan was raised in an environment of quality client care. As part of a family-run business, the Sutton Family understands the importance of planning for and leaving a legacy. Jordan is a part of her parents' legacy and their business's legacy.

Officially joining SuttonAdvisors, PLC in July 2004, Jordan has spent every moment since practicing and perfecting all aspects of the business. Jordan has worked diligently to develop internal processes for SuttonAdvisors, paying close attention to the individualism of each client. Jordan can see the similarities of process between each client, whether widow or professional athlete; but the goals and strategies employed are as unique as each individual and family.

Being a full-service financial boutique, SuttonAdvisors takes great pride in the responsibility of managing clients' estate plans, wills, trusts, investments and insurance needs. The mix of offerings allows Jordan and the Sutton Team to see the whole picture and with a business model that is anything but off-the-shelf, Jordan has been able to prove her creative skills in unique goal attainment for each and every client.

The community service work that Jordan has pursued in Mid-Michigan has aligned with her heritage, becoming part of her identity and helping to shape her values as an individual. She most recent board involvement includes Boys & Girls Club of Lansing, Kresge Art Museum, Kappa Kappa Gamma at Michigan State University and the Mid-Michigan Planned Giving Council.

Jordan received a Bachelor of Science in Economics from Centre College and a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Kentucky. She is currently enrolled in law school, following her parents' footsteps in acquiring a Juris Doctorate from Cooley Law School. She is dedicated to her family, the business and the community. As the next generation owner of SuttonAdvisors, she will be true to the core value of SuttonAdvisors: Define Your Journey®.

Love, Money, Control

When it comes to the business of life, much of what I learned can be traced to a couple of fundamentals that I first learned in playing sandlot baseball and that stayed with me through my brief "cup of coffee" in professional baseball. First, in order to get a hit, you have to get up to bat. That means that you have to be willing to fail (make an out) far more frequently than you succeed (get a hit). Second, as a fielder you need to anticipate the hit and be mentally prepared to make the right decision before you catch the ball. Successful planning for anything comes down to being willing to plan and anticipating things before they happen.

It is easy for many of us to relate to the old saying: "I'll get around to it someday" when it comes to estate planning, or to think that we have planned because we have written our will. The problem is we think of planning as an event, when it is really a process.

When I first considered being a participant in this book project, the thing that stood out for me in the title was the fact that "love" came before both "money" and "control". My own experience as a financial planner in working with many individuals and families over the past 25-plus years has shown me that good planning is an act of love. Planning is not meant to take the place of doing, but to make the doing worthwhile. Most of us are so caught up in the doing that planning for our loved ones and ourselves is left to chance.

Traditional estate planning is too closely associated with death, and focuses solely on avoiding probate and reducing estate taxes. When I was first out of law school this was how I viewed estate planning. While there were classes in law school on "estate and gift taxation" and on "wills and trusts", there were no classes that talked about discovering lifetime goals and values. This is unfortunate since good estate planning is part of total financial planning, and good financial planning is really all about helping us to live the lives we want to live.

While attending the Thomas M. Cooley Law School, I was working as a real estate broker. The teamwork and cooperation in being a part of a real estate closing was something I enjoyed. For the most part all of the parties: brokers, lenders, and title insurance companies were working toward a common goal of closing the deal. While I continued to work in real estate all through law school, upon graduation I joined my attorney brother, Joe, who was the one who encouraged me to attend law school.

When we formed Sutton & Sutton, I intended to practice real estate law and estate planning, but my brother soon decided to leave the private practice of law, and I ended up doing litigation. For any of you who have been a party to a lawsuit, you will understand that everyone is not always working toward the same goal.

I remember thinking that life is too short to do litigation for a living. I was giving advice to people that I wouldn't give myself and doing things for people that I wouldn't do for myself. If I was going to continue in practice, I wanted to be able to help people make plans so that problems could be avoided and I wanted to be able to select my clients.

I enrolled in an advanced estate planning class, and also completed a class in financial counseling. I concluded that financial and estate planning would permit me to help people avoid some of the problems caused by divorce, business failures, and alcohol abuse that I saw in the litigation practice.

Twenty-five years after graduating from law school I started a 3-year post-doctoral program with the Esperti Peterson Institute for Wealth Strategies Planning. This continuation of my professional and personal growth reinforced my belief that being proactive is an important ingredient for successfully helping people. In my experience most people associate estate planning with death planning and financial planning with investments. I want to teach people to understand that estate and financial planning are really all about making choices that lead to a better quality of life for themselves and their loved ones.

It is for this very reason that I am pleased to be a contributing author to Love, Money, Control: Reinventing Estate Planning. My hope is that readers learn that planning is an act of love; and that by being educated in the opportunities for doing good for themselves and their families, they will be motivated to start the planning process. To achieve their goals, it is essential for families to make a personal commitment to follow through with the process by implementing their plans and then periodically reviewing and updating them.

Acknowledgements
When writing about acts of love it is important to me that Linda, my wife, best friend, and business partner, and my daughter Jordan, know that I greatly appreciate their patience and understanding whether I am planning a family trip or studying financial planning. God has blessed me with a loving family and many good friends, co-workers, and clients, and for this I remain most grateful.