How Emerging Technology Could Support the Future of Estate Planning
Estate planning has long relied on carefully drafted documents to preserve a client’s wishes. But as technology changes how wealth is created, stored, and transferred, practitioners may also need to consider new ways to protect those documents and the intent behind them.
In this complimentary webinar, Martin Shenkman, Thomas Tietz, Deepak Saini, and Ishan Shukla explore how blockchain technology may be applied to estate planning. The discussion breaks down blockchain in practical terms and examines how it could help verify important documents, preserve a reliable history of client decisions, improve asset discovery, and protect against lost, altered, or competing records.
Rather than focusing on cryptocurrency, the program considers blockchain as a verification tool and explores ways estate planning professionals may be able to incorporate the technology into existing planning and administration practices.
Blockchain Beyond Cryptocurrency
For many people, blockchain is closely associated with Bitcoin and other digital assets. The webinar begins by separating those concepts and explaining blockchain as the underlying technology that can be used for a much broader range of purposes.
One of its distinguishing features is the ability to create a decentralized record that is extremely difficult to alter without detection.
In an estate planning context, that characteristic could provide another way to establish that a particular document existed in a particular form at a particular point in time.
The speakers discuss wills, trusts, beneficiary designations, operating agreements, letters of instruction, and other documents that may influence how a client’s assets are ultimately administered and distributed.
Creating a Digital Fingerprint of Estate Planning Documents
One of the most practical applications discussed during the webinar is cryptographic hashing. Rather than placing the contents of a confidential will or trust directly on a public blockchain, technology can generate a unique digital “fingerprint,” or hash, of the document.
If even a small portion of the document is subsequently changed, its fingerprint changes as well. The original hash can therefore be used to help demonstrate whether the document being presented later is the same version that was originally recorded.
This approach may allow practitioners to gain the verification benefits of blockchain without publicly exposing the client’s confidential planning decisions.
That could become increasingly relevant in situations involving lost documents, allegations of tampering, competing versions of a will, elder financial abuse, or questions about whether a document accurately reflects the client’s wishes.
Building a Reliable History of Client Decisions
Estate planning rarely involves a single document that remains unchanged throughout a client’s life.
Beneficiary designations change. Trusts and wills are amended. Families evolve. Assets are acquired and sold.
The speakers discuss how blockchain could help create a verifiable history of those changes.
For example, multiple versions of a will or beneficiary designation could each have their own digital fingerprint. Rather than simply seeing the most recent document, advisers and fiduciaries could potentially establish a chronological history showing when changes occurred.
That history could provide valuable context if a late-stage change is later challenged or if questions arise regarding undue influence or diminished capacity.
Improving Asset Discovery and Administration
The webinar also explores one of the recurring challenges in estate administration: determining what a client owned and how those assets can be located and accessed.
A family may know that an asset exists but not know where it is held. In other cases, beneficiaries may not even know the asset exists.
These challenges can become particularly complicated as client portfolios expand beyond traditional real estate and financial accounts to include digital assets, intellectual property, cryptocurrency, and other forms of wealth.
Blockchain-supported inventories could provide a more structured way to preserve information about the existence, location, and accessibility of assets while maintaining a verifiable history as those assets change over time.
The speakers also consider how similar technology could be applied to personal property lists, helping establish which version of a list represented a client’s most recent wishes and reducing uncertainty surrounding items such as artwork, jewelry, collectibles, and family heirlooms.
Preserving More Than Financial Wealth
Another interesting application extends beyond the transfer of assets. Estate planning can also help clients communicate their values, experiences, and intentions to future generations.
The webinar explores how technology could be used to preserve letters, videos, instructions, or other personal communications and deliver them when predetermined events occur.
A parent might prepare different messages for a child to receive upon reaching adulthood, graduating from college, getting married, or reaching another meaningful milestone.
Blockchain verification could also help establish that a video, letter, or other digital communication is authentic and has not been altered, an issue that may become increasingly important as artificial intelligence makes sophisticated digital manipulation easier.
Preparing for an Increasingly Digital Planning Environment
Blockchain is unlikely to replace the legal documents and professional judgment at the center of estate planning. Instead, the webinar presents it as another tool practitioners may eventually use to strengthen existing planning practices.
For attorneys, fiduciaries, accountants, and financial advisers, the opportunity may lie in identifying specific areas where greater verification, security, and continuity could benefit clients without adding unnecessary complexity.
As digital wealth continues to grow and technologies such as artificial intelligence make document and identity verification increasingly important, practitioners may need to think more broadly about how client intent is recorded, protected, and ultimately carried out.
Watch the full webinar above as Martin Shenkman, Thomas Tietz, Deepak Saini, and Ishan Shukla explore practical applications of blockchain technology and what they may mean for the future of estate planning.