Eventually Isn't a Plan: How Julie Gawarecki Built Same-Day Estate Planning Into Her Practice

Prestige Wealth Advisors: Who We Are & What We Do

Julie Gawarecki, of Prestige Wealth Advisors, an Osaic firm, has built her practice around a specific insight: most of her clients have never had an honest conversation about what happens to their assets, or who their beneficiaries actually are.

About 60% of Julie's clients are pre- and early-retirees over the age of 55, and what connects them has little to do with net worth. Many assumed a will was only for the wealthy, or that naming a beneficiary on an account was the same as having a real plan. Neither assumption holds up once you look closer.

"My job has evolved from being a product pusher into being a true advisor," Julie says, someone who manages the money and also makes sure the plan around the money actually holds up.

Julie sees her role as the educator: making sure clients understand what they own, how it's titled, and what will actually happen to it, before Trust & Will helps get it documented properly. The attorney's work stays with the attorney.

Before Trust & Will: Estate Planning Everyone Agreed On, and No One Did

Before partnering with Trust & Will, Julie watched the same problem play out again and again: estate planning was the thing every client agreed was important, and almost none of them acted on it.

"Beneficiaries were taking money out of accounts with zero prior planning," Julie recalls. Sometimes the wake-up call came fast and unannounced, a client landing in the ER for something as sudden as a kidney stone, right after the estate planning conversation had finally started. Suddenly it wasn't theoretical anymore.

Clients either had no documents at all, or documents drawn up years earlier that no longer matched their family or their assets. Local attorney marketing compounded the problem. Much of it was framed around "protect your kids," language that skipped over what these documents actually do first: protect the client's own affairs while they're still alive—incapacity, digital access, bill pay. Cost and access made things harder still. Some clients had nothing but a life insurance policy and no cash for a traditional attorney engagement.

Even when Julie could point clients toward a resource, handing over a link rarely worked. Without someone sitting next to them, the paperwork stalled.

"I was leaving real planning gaps in client relationships," Julie says, and missing the chance to have deeper conversations about accounts and assets she didn't even know existed yet.

Enter Trust & Will: A Repeatable Process, Built In-Office

Julie brought Trust & Will into her practice through the Osaic system on the Premium subscription, launching with an initial cohort of 50 clients on February 1st. The goal was to offer estate planning as a real, built-in benefit, not a one-off referral.

Some early clients showed up without the documentation the process needed. Rather than winging it each time, Julie used that friction to build a repeatable workflow around it. Pricing is tiered: $500 for core documents, and $1,250 for more complex plans involving retirement accounts and other complex assets.

For existing clients, estate planning is now woven directly into the annual review. Julie updated her review questionnaire to specifically ask about wills, powers of attorney, and designated representatives, so gaps surface naturally instead of her having to guess. New relationships come in through monthly educational events held on the last Friday of the month: a presentation paired with a 21-question quiz that gamifies the material, promoted through local newspapers and the chamber of commerce.

But the single biggest workflow change was simpler than any tool: Julie stopped sending clients home with documents to finish on their own.

"That's the difference between me and 'here's a link, good luck,'" Julie says. Every client now completes the plan in-office, with Julie sitting beside them, walking through the digital forms step by step. She personally notarizes the documents and brings in a colleague to witness, so clients walk out with a bound, complete set the same day. Most sessions wrap in about two hours.

Julie has also rolled out estate planning at half price for the adult children of existing clients, planting the seeds of multigenerational relationships early. Looking ahead, she's exploring how AI could review clients' existing documents before a meeting even starts, a "sniff test" for whether an old plan still matches their life.

The Impact: A Repeatable Process and Deeper Client Relationships

Since launching on the Premium subscription, Julie has worked through the first 50-client cohort that started February 1st.

What matters most to Julie is the shift in the depth of her client conversations, more than the cohort number itself. Because clients now sit with her in-office to finish their plan, the process regularly surfaces accounts or assets she didn't know about. Document pickup has become the moment to schedule next steps and uncover what else needs attention. Her updated review questionnaire is catching coverage gaps—missing powers of attorney, outdated beneficiaries—that used to slip through unnoticed between reviews.

The monthly educational events have become as much a lead-qualification tool as an education one. Some attendees show up just for free advice, but the serious ones self-select, letting Julie prune her follow-up list down to the clients who are ready to act.

One story stays with her: a client came in for planning not long before a sudden medical emergency, a kidney stone landing him in the ER, the kind of thing that could happen to anyone, at any age. Because the process had already started, the plan wasn't still sitting on a to-do list when it suddenly mattered.

"That's the story I lead with when someone tells me they'll get to it eventually," Julie says. "You don't get to pick when ‘eventually’ turns into now."

Julie markets herself as an educator, not a document mill. Clients with genuinely complex needs still get referred out to local attorneys; she's upfront that most people don't need a $2,500 attorney engagement to get this right.

One myth she works constantly to bust: that trusts are only for the ultra-wealthy. It's one of the biggest reasons middle-market clients never start in the first place. Digital assets get equal billing in her process too. Digital power of attorney covers a gap most clients haven't thought about: who manages online accounts and bill pay during incapacity.

Her advice to other advisors is simple: give clients clear homework and a call to action. A plan that only lives as a link in someone's inbox never gets finished. Sitting with clients through the actual paperwork is what converts intent into a completed plan.

Your Clients Trust You With Their Future. Help Them Protect It.

Estate planning is one of the most overlooked parts of a complete financial plan. Trust & Will makes it simple for financial advisors to offer clients a clear path forward at every life stage.

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