Littlejohn Law LLC - January 2020

Littlejohn Law LLC - January 2020

WWW.LITTLEJOHNLAWLLC.COM 740-314-4829

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BUILD IT. PROTECT IT. PRESERVE IT.

LESSONS I LEARNED IN 2019

AND HOW I’M MOVING FORWARD IN 2020

If anything made 2019 great for me, it was the lessons I learned about how to be a better attorney, businessman, father, and husband. I plan on applying those lessons to my life this upcoming year in hopes of making 2020 even better. Every day, our clients trust us with their most personal matters, and providing merely adequate service is not enough. That’s why I always strive to provide our clients with the best possible service every time. Here are a few ways I’m going to do that in 2020. BE BRILLIANT AT THE BASICS. Understanding the law is a complex business, but sometimes taking a step back from the law-specific details, and getting back to the basics, is what it takes to allow a practice to serve its clients best. I hope this upcoming year will be one where my staff and I can focus on the basics and provide the best service possible to our clients. CREATE A SPACE WHERE WORKERS CAN THRIVE. Working with people you trust is a great thing. Having people who you can trust to carry out the mission of your workplace, even if you’re gone, is another thing entirely. I greatly appreciate my team, and I can’t wait to see what we do in the new year. I have no doubt that in 2020, Littlejohn Law will continue to be a place where we live out our mission and values on a daily basis, even more so than we do now.

HAVE A SUPPORT SYSTEM. Part of what I do to help my team work on behalf of our mission and values is leading myself well — and the way I did that in 2019 was by building a support system. I still need help, and I don’t always see the areas where I need to improve. That’s why, last year, I made an effort to surround myself with coaches and advisors who give me feedback on how to be a better entrepreneur. Life as a business owner can be lonely. When you’re in charge, you don’t always have someone in your life who understands what you’re going through. I hope I can continue to learn and draw wisdom from the advisors I’ve come to trust in 2020. KNOW YOUR VALUES AND WHAT’S IMPORTANT TO YOU. This might be the most important lesson I learned last year. If you don’t know what your values are, your decisions will be rash, erratic, and against your best interest. While I want to serve my clients in the best way possible, I value my family more than anything else. In the past, I took on cases where I had to work some 12–18-hour days, and it kept me away from my wife and daughter. In 2019, I realized I can’t do that anymore. My family comes first, and knowing that, I can make better decisions for myself and my business.

If you find yourself in need of our services in 2020, know we’ll never stop improving or looking for ways to serve our community better. Happy New Year!

–Edward Littlejohn

WWW.LITTLEJOHNLAWLLC.COM | 1

SO, WHO GETS ACCESS TO YOUR FACEBOOK ACCOUNT WHEN YOU’RE GONE?

THE IMPORTANCE OF ORGANIZING YOUR DIGITAL ASSETS

“Digital assets” is a phrase used to encompass internet-based assets, including your online photos, personal blog, social media accounts, financial accounts, professional blogs or websites that generate income, and digital currency such as Bitcoin. If you were to die, could the people you love access and claim these assets? Would they even know they exist? In the event of your death, your heirs might have difficulty accessing your assets and might need to take costly, time- consuming legal action in order to gain access. Even then, the court may not have any clear legal guidance about what to do because digital assets have evolved more quickly than the laws of inheritance that govern them. Now with a little preplanning, you can plan for these assets to transfer almost seamlessly into the hands of the people you intend to have them. However, a few practical and legal issues may prevent your heirs from gaining access to your digital assets:

There are measures you can take to address all of these. Some are simple and require no more than a notebook, a pen, and some time. Others have legal implications and are best addressed with the help of an estate planning attorney.

First, do an inventory of your digital assets and store it in a secure place readily accessible to your loved ones. A good old-fashioned loose-leaf binder or notebook works fine. List all your online accounts, such as Facebook, email, and online payment accounts and their corresponding passwords. (Update the notebook when you update your passwords or add accounts!) If the idea of committing all of this information to paper seems too old-fashioned or insecure to you, consider getting a password management app. These typically don’t cost much but can provide a level of security that might give you peace of mind. Another thing you should do is back up files that are stored to the cloud. While it’s convenient for you to have your family pictures in the cloud when you’re alive, you don’t want these irreplaceable treasures to be lost to your family after you’re gone. Make the effort to back up pictures and other important files to your own computer or local storage device.

• Federal laws intended to preserve >Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4

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