When it comes to marriage and estate planning, whether you did or didn't sign a prenuptial agreement will have a significant impact on the contents of your estate planning documents. Aside from this, once you're married, a whole new set of gift and estate planning techniques will be available to you and your new spouse, including community property, tenancy by the entirety ownership, and AB Trusts.

If you recently got married and didn't sign a prenuptial agreement, then you should be aware that the laws of the state where you live could require you to leave a portion of your estate to your new spouse, regardless of whether you want to or not, through your state's "elective share laws." In one estate I dealt with, the children from the wife's first marriage were told that their mother and new stepfather signed a prenuptial agreement. But after mom died the agreement was no where to be found, and so stepdad ended up with a life estate in mom's house (the house was left to mom's children in her trust, but it didn't matter) and 30% of everything else.

When it comes to divorce and estate planning, if you recently got divorced, then not only will you need to update your estate planning documents, but you'll also need to change the beneficiaries of your life insurance policies and retirement plans. Otherwise, your ex-spouse could end up with (another) windfall courtesy of you. And I'm sure that's the last thing that you would want to happen.

This past week my firm has been involved with our annual client education workshops. We believe that as estate planning attorneys we have a duty to contact our clients at least once a year. This annual updating and review process serves three purposes: (1) It reminds our clients to think about their estate plans and determine if any changes are needed, and also to update us on the funding of their revocable living trusts; (2) It gives our firm the opportunity to keep our clients informed about changes in the law; and (3) It gives our clients the opportunity to learn about new or improved estate planning techniques that they should consider as part of their estate plans. Every year our clients let us know how much they appreciate these educational workshops and the annual review process and every year we have more and more clients who understand the added value of working with us year in and year out.

In case you're wondering, this year we decided to focus on current and future gift and estate tax exemptions and rates; the future of estate tax repeal if Senator Obama or Senator McCain is elected as our new president; asset protection planning; and the options for paying estate taxes.

Unfortunately many estate planning attorneys don't have this type of annual maintenance program for their clients. If your estate planning attorney is one of them, then over the next few weeks you'll need to stay tuned for my six reasons why you should consider reviewing and updating your estate plan.