Phil has provided sound, forward-thinking counsel to businesses and individuals for nearly 40 years. But more than just counseling clients, Phil genuinely knows where they’re coming from. As founding partner, CEO and Chief Investment Officer of The Advocate Group, LLC, from 1999-2013, Phil brings an enormously valuable, first-person understanding of the needs and concerns of Story Family Institute's entrepreneurial clients. Virtually 100% of the clientele from Phil’s former firm were officers of local Fortune 500 companies. From guiding companies through employee benefit plan design to helping executives optimize their compensation, Phil offers Story Family Institute's clients a wellspring of knowledge and practical insight.

PROFESSIONAL PASSIONS

EDUCATION & CERTIFICATION

Stoddard lends bold ideas and forward-thinking strategies to the Story Family Institute team that benefit the firm’s entire client roster — particularly the adult children of the firm’s clients and those professionals who are in the early stages of establishing their careers and families. Stoddard finds great fulfillment in walking alongside his clients, providing them with the tools and information they need to make educated, meaningful decisions. Regardless of their season of life, Stoddard’s clients can rest assured that he is fully dedicated to helping them achieve their goals both now and in the future.

Professional Passions

Education & Certification

Incredibly focused and a shining example of principled leadership, Michele has spent 30 years in the financial, insurance and estate planning industries. After a brief stint in the world of public accounting, Michele established a private estate-planning law practice, which she ran out of her home for 15 years while raising three children. Michele then joined The Advocate Group, a large regional Registered Investment Advisory firm, as a founding partner to head up the operations department. Today, Story Family Institute's clients directly benefit from Michele’s artful mediation skills in addition to the broad array of abilities that make her an essential member of the team.

Professional Passions

Education & Certification

What Does Cory Do For Our Family Clients?

Cory executes a review of each of our clients’ prior State and Federal income tax returns and then he writes a findings memo which is helpful to the Story team and most often helpful to our client families. We have no intent to replace a trusted advisory relationship with a client’s existing CPA/accountant.  The intent of this 2^nd Opinion is to educate Story advisors and to provide insight to our client as necessary. The existence of the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) provides ample reason for the benefit of this additional perspective.  For those clients desiring to bring a creative CPA onto their planning team, Cory is our preferred collaborator.

What is Cory's Expertise? 

Cory is a CPA and Partner in his regional firm, E.T Kelly & Associates, LLC.  The Story team has worked with Cory for almost a decade with a focus on provision of insight around the tax impact of different stock option exercise strategies and held share diversification protocols.

Why Does Story Enjoy Collaborating With Cory?

We enjoy working with Cory because he is responsive and a creative thinker.  Cory has a servant’s heart and our clients love his work and his communication style.  Many of our senior officer clients are former CPA’s who continue to execute and file their own income tax returns yet Cory’s tax projections are remarkably helpful to the do-it-yourself (DIY) tax preparer. Cory is both the Story corporate tax preparer and likewise, all Story owners personal tax returns are prepared by Cory.  Lastly, Cory and his team are our primary go-to source for all challenging income tax related research issues that we wish to explore at our expense on behalf of our client families.

What Does Angela Do For Our Family Clients? 

Part of improving the quality of life of our family clients is being able to help them reduce stress by organizing just about anything one can imagine (be that finances or one’s closet!).  Angela and her team can either take over a process like bill paying on behalf of a family or, if preferred, Angela’s team can teach a family member how to most effectively execute a process of record keeping, bill paying, and financial organization. Recent research indicates that spending money to free up time and create peace of mind, has a more lasting and satisfying impact on lifestyle than buying more stuff.  Angela and her team help our clients enhance life satisfaction by “delegating and decluttering” wherever satisfaction can be generated. Angela’s team also helps provide administrative services for some of the specialized estate and charitable planning techniques utilized in Story’s consultative process.

What Is Angela's Expertise?

Angela is a CPA, formerly affiliated as a senior Manager in the Private Client Services group of WIPFLI, LLP, a prominent local Accounting firm. Angela’s team does not do income tax compliance work, but they help a cadre of clients to organize financial information to make tax preparation fast and efficient. Angela also has extensive experience managing a multi-client family office for a group of partners in a local Hedge Fund organization. Regardless of the complexity of a situation, Angela’s team can cut through the clutter.

Why Does Story Enjoy Collaborating with Angela?

Angela is a super organized, sponge for information and she can get to the nub of an intricate issue in record time.  We often turn to Angela to assist with complex issues like researching assisted living options and managing the financial mechanics for the parents of our clients, which is a process somewhat affectionately known as “Parenting Parents” for clients who are simultaneously parenting their children and their parents. Using a third party like Angela to record keep and pay bills can help to maintain family unity in difficult circumstances.

What Do Attorneys Do For Our Family Clients?

Within the context of Story Family Institute, though we have several attorneys on our internal team, Story does not draft legal documents.  We need attorneys to create the legal framework which enables great ideas and concepts to make the leap from conception into reality.

Broadly speaking, the most frequently encountered areas that require outside drafting are:

• Core or foundational estate planning documents.  These documents are the starting point for all great estate and legacy planning.  Creating great “foundational” documents is the first step which allows our clients to build nicely upon this new foundation as their goals, objectives, and tolerance for complexity come into greater focus. Two of every ten clients have perfect foundational documents; eight of ten do not and they are thrilled to take this first step in “getting things in order.”

The Story team will collaborate with any attorney the client desires yet; as is said in medicine: “There is no such thing as minor surgery, only minor surgeons.” We prefer collaborating with a select group of practitioners with whom we have worked in the past, many of whom will provide an institutional discount to the client because of our extensive existing knowledge of the client and because of the past introductions made to many of these practitioners.  Story never receives referral compensation from attorneys.

• Advanced or Phase II estate and legacy planning documents. There exists another universe of estate and legacy planning; one might also say that there exists another palate of colors to draw from beyond “foundational estate planning” which have immense tax, social, and family benefits. As a client’s net worth skyrockets due to acceleration through stock options or other circumstances, there arises a need to apply new color and fresh thinking to more fully accomplish Family Objectives. What is true in athletics is also true in the law; almost any kid with athletic ability can play middle-school basketball, but to step on a court with Michael Jordan or Lebron James requires serious skills!  Advanced legacy planning, where we are creating a Family Bank, or drafting a trust in another jurisdiction like South Dakota or Nevada, require a certain skillset which most core estate planning practitioners simply do not possess.

• Asset Protection Planning. This is the most arcane, and least often utilized aspect of Family Legacy law, yet it can be the most powerful aspect of retaining assets in the family bloodline, away from the reach of creditors, outside the reach of state income tax, and well beyond the reach of Federal Estate Tax as assets pass from one generation to the next.  Practitioners in the art of Asset Protection are like great baseball pitchers: “they are as scarce as hen’s teeth.”

Many of our clients are first generation wealth creators and as such there exists a preexisting mindset that legal fees are something to minimize or avoid.  In reality, legal fees are a direct investment in the family.  Legal fees are not something to be avoided.  In reference to the kind of legal implementation both Story Capital and Story Family Institute are focused upon, legal fees are the very breath which gives life to creativity, inspiration and vision. 

Why do we like to use attorney's in our sphere of influence?

• They are friendly
• They speak English, not legalese
• They draw pictures which illustrate complex legal concepts
• They interface with our technology platform
• Like sub-contractors, they want to keep our clients happy, which keeps the Story Team happy. We call this quality control.