As director of the five-year-old Wealth & Well-Being Center for Gibraltar Private Bank & Trust in Coral Gables, Fla., Elaine King provides comprehensive financial planning for Gibraltar's clients. Her group, which includes a trust and estate attorney, a certified financial analyst and a second planner, has advised more than 850 clients with an average net worth of $7 million.

Her team's services include education, retirement and estate planning, family meetings, financial literacy, divorce planning and philanthropy. They are included in Gibraltar's standard wealth management fees: 1.25% on the first $1 million, 0.75% on the next $2 million, and 0.50% on anything over $3 million.

King brings an international pedigree to her interdisciplinary practice. Her MBA focused on international business, and her first job with Smith Barney included a stint in Tokyo. Prior to joining Gibraltar, she advised Latin American clients for the Royal Bank of Scotland. King is trilingual (English, Spanish and Portuguese) and was raised in Peru, Mexico, Canada and the United States.

DIVORCE PLANNING

Surprisingly for someone with so much international experience, King has settled into a very domestic specialty: divorce planning. Helping Gibraltar's divorcing clients now consumes 25% to 30% of her day. Business is very stable, she notes. Divorce rates in the United States fall within predictable ranges of 40% to 50% for the first marriage, 60% to 70% for the second and over 70% for the third.

King's clients are usually female. They come to her in crisis mode. One client handed King a check for $2 million with instructions to "put it somewhere I won't spend it." Another client ended up with $10 million in assets, but no will or trust. It took significant prodding to convince her that her estate-tax issues required attention.

King is no stranger to such financial obtuseness. Her own grandfather's premature death decimated family fortunes. Although he had amassed considerable wealth, he failed to plan for the future. His wife lost everything after his death.

That tragedy still haunts King. She aims to prepare her divorcee clients for (1) financial independence; (2) a well-planned estate; and (3) a family that is competent and comfortable with wealth. She is currently working toward Certified Divorce Financial Analyst certification, a credential that clients are beginning to expect, she says. This is in addition to King's many other bona fides: She is the 2009 president-elect of the Miami-Dade Financial Planning Association, a member of the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards advisory team, an active member of the Family Collaborative Law Institute and a postgraduate student at the Bowen Center for the Study of the Family at Georgetown University.

COLLABORATIVE PROCESS

King trained at the Collaborative Family Law Institute, one of several family-law practices in Florida that educate the public about this alternative to contested divorce. Unlike the adversarial legal system, the collaborative process rewards cooperation. If the divorcing couple does not succeed in settling differences outside of court, the attorneys, by agreement, must both withdraw from the case.

Negotiations include two advisors: a "financial neutral" and a mental health professional. The financial neutral is usually a CPA or financial planner. Responsibilities include gathering financial data, developing budgets, valuing property, evaluating tax issues, forecasting cash flows, presenting inventories and devising possible financial settlement scenarios-for both parties.

Pioneering the role of the financial professional within collaborative family law has proven to be personally and professionally rewarding for King. The referral door swings both ways, she says: Her center attracts women who then use the bank's wealth management services; and bank clients have the opportunity to take advantage of her expertise.

 

Jim Grote, CFP, a writer in Louisville, Ky., contributes regularly to Financial Planning.