By: Dr. Tamara Patzer
In brief: Executives demand coordination at work and tolerate silos at home. A New Orleans tax attorney offers a five-point test of whether an owner’s lawyer, accountant and financial adviser function as a team, and explains what a family office changes when the answer is no.
No chief executive would accept a company in which finance, legal and operations refused to share information. Yet many run their personal affairs through exactly that arrangement. The lawyer knows the estate documents. The accountant knows the returns. The financial adviser knows the portfolio. Each is competent, and none has seen the whole. Todd M. Villarrubia, a New Orleans attorney who focuses on tax and estate planning, wrote Entrepreneurial B.E.A.S.T. Mode™ for executives and owners who want their private affairs managed with the discipline they bring to their companies. His five-point test is a good place to start.
Why does this matter to an executive?
Because the stakes are often tied to the business. The U.S. Small Business Administration counts 36,207,130 small businesses in the United States, with 62.3 million employees. For the owner or executive of such a company, personal wealth is bound up with the enterprise. A decision in one place has consequences in the other.
The book makes the connection explicit. It says an attorney who does not grasp the company’s structure can undermine the plan: “Estate planning strategies could be ineffective because your attorney doesn’t understand your business structure.” An executive who would never approve a budget without knowing the business should not approve an estate plan on the same terms.
Test one: do your advisers know each other?
Not by name only, but well enough to pick up the phone. If you asked each adviser to name the others on your team, how many would be able to do it? And have they ever spoken about you, with your permission, without you in the room?
The author’s standard is high and clear: “Critically, you want someone committed to collaboration; your attorney should view your CPA and financial advisor as partners, not competitors.” The sentence applies to every adviser, not just the attorney. If one of them sees the others as rivals for the client’s attention, the executive has a structural problem.
Test two: does anyone hold the whole map?
Ask your advisers to describe your structure from memory. A strong team can name your entities, who owns each, and how each is classified for tax. The IRS explains that an eligible entity can use Form 8832 to elect whether it is treated as a corporation, a partnership or an entity disregarded as separate from its owner. If your lawyer says one thing and your accountant says another, the team lacks a shared map.
The book reminds the reader that the combination matters more than any single piece: “The real power lies not in individual strategies, but in their coordinated application.” An executive who sees the point in business will recognize it here.
Test three: do the documents match the facts?
Estate documents, shareholder agreements and entity papers should describe the same company. Often they do not. A buy-sell agreement may name a successor that the will does not. A trust may hold shares in an entity that has since been restructured. Mismatches are not scandals. They are what accumulate when no one checks.
The federal estate picture adds a reason to look. The IRS lists $15,000,000 per person as the 2026 basic exclusion amount. An executive whose holdings approach that figure, or who expects them to, should have documents that were written with the current structure in mind.
Test four: who convenes the team?
In a company, a CEO or COO convenes department heads. In a household, nobody does. The test asks who calls the lawyer, the accountant and the financial adviser together and how often. If the honest answer is that the executive does it when something goes wrong, that is a sign of a missing role.
The role can be played by a lead attorney, a trusted financial professional, a chief of staff or a family office. The book acknowledges that the full office is not for everyone, but the function is. As Villarrubia writes of advisers who work alone, “While these individuals are valuable resources, they don’t form a cohesive team on their own.”
Test five: what is the standard for the team?
The last test is about expectations. Does the team have a shared set of goals, written down? Do they know what the family is trying to protect? The book argues that the quality of the group sets a limit on the result: “the quality of your advisors determines the ceiling on your legacy”.
A written statement need not be long. Half a page describing what the family wants, what it fears and what it plans to do is enough to give the advisers a common reference. Executives will recognize it as a mission statement for the household.
How should an executive score the test?
Give one point for each test passed. Five means the team is working as one, and the executive can concentrate on the business. Three or four means there are gaps worth closing. Two or fewer means the personal side of the enterprise is running on luck, and a change is overdue.
A low score is not an indictment of the advisers. In most cases, they were never asked to work together, and each did what was in the engagement letter. The fix is to ask.
What does a family office change?
It formalizes the answers to tests two, three and four. A family office keeps the map, checks the documents and convenes the team. For an executive with many moving parts, that may be worth building. For others, a lead adviser and a calendar may be enough. The first step is the same in both cases: decide that the personal enterprise deserves management.
Common questions
Should I fire an adviser who scores badly? Not on that basis alone. Start by asking them to cooperate, and see how they respond.
Who pays for the coordination? Often each adviser bills for the time they spend. An attorney can explain the options.
Is this relevant if I am an employee and not an owner? Yes, if your compensation, equity or deferred pay creates complexity.
Sources
- U.S. Small Business Administration, Office of Advocacy, Frequently Asked Questions About Small Businesses 2026
- Internal Revenue Service, About Form 8832, Entity Classification Election
- Internal Revenue Service, What’s New: Estate and Gift Tax
About the author. Dr. Tamara Patzer is a publisher and former newspaper editor. She was on the staff of The Charlotte Sun when it was named a 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist for its Hurricane Charley coverage.
About the source. Todd M. Villarrubia is an attorney with an LL.M. in Taxation and a Juris Doctorate. He is an Accredited Estate Planner, a Board Certified Expert in Estate Planning and Administration, and a Fiduciary Investment Advisor Representative. He is the author of Entrepreneurial B.E.A.S.T. Mode™. Wealth Planning Law Group, 101 W. Robert E. Lee Blvd., Ste 404, New Orleans, LA 70124. Phone: 504-982-8207; email: todd@lawealthplan.com; website: https://lawealthplan.com/?utm_source=newsanchored&utm_medium=ceo-weekly&utm_campaign=family-office
Disclaimer: Sponsored feature written on behalf of Todd M. Villarrubia. This article is general information, not legal or tax advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Results vary.
