Advanced Planning Counsel Desk
The Art of Planning is fractional advanced planning counsel for RIAs and advisor teams — attorney-led review, training, and strategy that helps you find the estate, tax, trust, and succession gaps around your best relationships and biggest prospects, before someone else does.
Kevin M. Donovan · Attorney licensed in Michigan & Tennessee
The advisor's exposure
A client can hold a binder of documents and still not have a plan that is coordinated, current, funded, tax-aware, and aligned with what they actually want. When the gap surfaces in someone else's review — a competitor, an outside attorney, a CPA, or the next generation — the relationship is already at risk. The work of The Art of Planning is to find those gaps first, on your side of the table.
How the Counsel Desk works with you
A planning-risk review of your best clients' estate, tax, trust, beneficiary, and governance architecture — so you lead with value, not product.
Client relationship audit → 02Attorney-led review of a prospect's documents and structures, with meeting strategy — bringing real planning depth to the conversations that win sophisticated families.
Prospect case review → 03Advanced, advisor-fluent education — including the "How to Talk to $30 Million Families" series — that sharpens senior advisors and levels up younger ones.
Advisor training → 04Custom presentations and live meeting support for advisor events, client events, and referral relationships — credible, emotionally intelligent, client-friendly.
Speaking & presentations → 05Assess whether you truly need a full-time planning hire, define the role before you fill it, and build the intake, review, and documentation process — while we serve as your fractional counsel until the desk can stand on its own.
Advanced planning consulting →Built for
Founder
An attorney whose practice is focused on estate planning, taxation, and business succession for high-net-worth families, founders, and owners. A former financial advisor and advanced planning professional, Kevin has built advisor-facing planning and training programs, developed CPA and attorney referral alliances, and spoken at national advisor events — pairing technical legal analysis with genuine advisor fluency.
Start here
A planning-risk review of your top client relationships — or your next major prospect case. One engagement is the cleanest way to see how the Counsel Desk works alongside your team.
