Owen is a licensed attorney in Colorado and is building out an After Loss Consultation offering for families, executors, trustees, personal representatives, and loved ones who receive the phone call nobody wants and suddenly have to figure out what to do next. You can also check out YourTrustedPlanner.com.
For Colorado residents, call: (970) 820-0090
For residents of all 50 states and territories, especially those looking at higher-wealth planning, Wyoming asset-protection structures, or broader Shields & Succession conversations, call: (307) 463-3600
A human answers or calls you back.
Disclaimer: This article and conversation are educational. Owen Hathaway is a licensed Colorado attorney, but he is not your attorney unless you formally engage him or his firm through the proper process. Rules vary by state. Nothing here should be treated as individualized legal, tax, financial, probate, creditor, estate, trust, or asset-protection advice.
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The Call Nobody Wants
There is a moment in every family system where theory stops being theory.
The phone rings. Someone is gone.
Maybe it was expected. Maybe it was not. Maybe there was a long illness, months of decline, whispered planning, medical decisions, family rotations, and one person quietly doing more than everyone else noticed.
Maybe it was sudden. Maybe the hospital calls. Maybe a neighbor calls. Maybe a sibling calls. Maybe the person who always knew where everything was is now the one who cannot answer the questions.
And then someone in the family begins asking the wrong first question before the rest of the family is ready.
Do we need probate?
That is usually the first question Owen Hathaway hears. Not because people are foolish. Because grief wants a checklist. Grief wants something to do. Grief wants a door to open, a form to file, a court to call, an attorney to answer, a clean sequence that says: do this, then this, then this, and eventually this will stop feeling impossible.
But Owen’s answer is almost always the same at the beginning.
I don’t know.
Not because he is being evasive. Because he does not know what life looks like right now.
That phrase stayed with me.
He may have helped create the estate plan. He may know the parent. He may know the documents. He may even know what everyone hoped would happen. But after loss, the plan meets reality.
Accounts moved. Assets changed. Relationships frayed. Mail piled up. Medical debt appeared. A gas-rights check arrived from an asset nobody remembered owning. A child who was supposed to help disappeared. A sibling who was supposed to stay calm did not. A trustee who thought they were doing the right thing suddenly realized they had a fiduciary role they never fully understood.
That is the space Owen is designing the After Loss Consultation to serve. Not the theoretical estate plan.
The human aftermath.
What Do You Have, and Who Do You Have?
Owen starts with two questions.
What do you have?
Who do you have?
Everything else comes from there.
