Simeon Esprit Case Study: Estate Planning for Advisors

Bethesda Wealth Planning Group: Who We Are & What We Do

Bethesda Wealth Planning Group, affiliated with LPL Financial, is a financial planning firm headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, serving clients across the country. Simeon Esprit, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, built the firm around a straightforward but powerful belief: the role of an advisor isn't to manufacture certainty, it's to help people move forward with intention.

Simeon brings a distinctive background to the work. Born in London, England, he attended the University of Pennsylvania on a Division I basketball scholarship before earning an MBA from the University of Derby, where he served as class president. He holds the Tax Planning Certified Professional (TPCP®) and Wealth Management Certified Professional (WMCP®) designations, and his approach to financial planning reflects that breadth—grounded in structure, honest tradeoffs, and repeatable systems that hold up through market cycles and life transitions.

"Accuracy is not always the goal in financial planning. Direction is."

That philosophy shapes everything about how the firm serves clients. Bethesda Wealth Planning Group focuses primarily on families approaching and transitioning into retirement—typically clients in their 50s and beyond, at various points on that journey. Some have been planning for years. Others walk in the door a week before their last day of work.

"We meet people at various stages on that journey. But it's very much helping them move and transition into retirement gracefully; that's the ultimate goal."

The firm's edge isn't a product or a strategy. It's the relationship. Clients consistently describe feeling genuinely heard, put at ease, and confident that their advisor is truly working in their corner. For Simeon, that trust is the foundation everything else is built on—including estate planning.

Before Trust & Will: The Follow-Through Problem

Like many advisors, Simeon and his team handled estate planning the traditional way: maintaining a network of trusted estate attorneys and referring clients out when the need arose.

The attorneys were good. The problem was what happened next—or rather, what didn't.

"Everyone who needed estate planning didn't ultimately move forward with it. Because there was an additional decision that they had to make, which was paying an additional cost for an additional service from another party."

That extra friction—a separate appointment, a separate bill, a separate relationship to navigate—was enough to make procrastination the path of least resistance. Clients who genuinely needed their documents in place would nod along in the meeting and then quietly let it slide. For a firm built around comprehensive retirement planning, it was a real gap. Estate planning isn't an add-on to a retirement plan. It is part of one.

Enter Trust & Will: A One-Stop Retirement Planning Experience

Simeon's decision to bring estate planning in-house through Trust & Will was less about shopping the market and more about finding a solution that fit naturally into an already-strong client experience.

"Trust & Will was just something that kept coming up. We eventually had a conversation, spoke through how easy it was to set up and then it was a no-brainer."

Today, estate planning is bundled into Bethesda Wealth Planning Group's financial planning offering as a complimentary service. No separate bill, no separate trip to an attorney's office, no additional decision for the client to make.

"We use estate planning as something complimentary—as a reason for them to work with us."

The workflow is thoughtfully designed for the firm's retirement-focused clientele. Before clients begin their estate plan, Simeon's team sends them a curated set of preparation questions, drawn from the most common questions clients ask, so that when they sit down to complete their documents, the process feels seamless rather than overwhelming.

"Before you sit down and do this, think about these questions. Once they do start, it's very seamless. There's more preparation on the back end before they jump into it—with the expectation that it's going to be DIY because they've already thought about this."

After documents are drafted, the team reviews everything with the client before a final signing. It's a process that respects clients' time while making sure nothing falls through the cracks.

And for clients who want a more personal touch, who prefer to sit across the table from an estate attorney, Simeon still maintains those referral relationships. Trust & Will handles the majority of cases; the attorney network handles the rest.

The Impact: Confidence That Every Client Gets Covered

One of the clearest shifts since bringing Trust & Will into the practice has been a change in how Simeon thinks about estate planning completion, not as something he hopes clients will follow through on, but something he knows they will.

"It gives us confidence knowing that everyone who needs an estate plan is going to get one. Period. Full stop."

That certainty has also opened up new conversations beyond the one-on-one planning relationship. 

"Something as simple as being in a seminar room and asking people to raise their hand if they have a will in place and then keep your hand raised if it was updated or amended within the last five years. It's a really good way to grab people's attention and talk through why it's so important."

Almost every hand goes down. And from there, the conversation naturally flows into the broader importance of financial literacy, legacy planning, and why most wealth is lost by the third generation without a plan in place.

"At the very least, just having an estate planning conversation—once we can start having that, we can start bringing in the importance of financial planning along the way."

The Approach With Real Results:

43 estate plans completed through Trust & Will

11 multigenerational referrals generated

$750,000 average client assets

For Simeon, the numbers tell part of the story. But the bigger shift is philosophical. Estate planning used to be something clients hoped to get around to. Now it's something they walk away with, done, signed, and in place, as a natural part of working with Bethesda Wealth Planning Group. And for a firm built around helping people transition into retirement gracefully, that's exactly the point.

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