We asked some brilliant folks to tell us about the best advice they’ve ever given to a client and have highlighted some of the responses below.

Katie McCleary

As adult children, many times we find ourselves almost reversing roles with our parents. As they age, some of their physical, emotional and mental functions may not be as sharp as they once were. As such, adult children are put in uncomfortable situations in order to keep a parent safe. This is very common. A client will say that they have to be the parent now. My suggestion is this: Read more>>

KELSEY GARNER

As a therapist, I’m not clinically trained to offer advice. My role , instead, is to offer my clients another perspective, or maybe even a consideration that lands outside of their typical way of thinking. I’ve been practicing as a mental health therapist since 2016, and through the years I’ve worked with many folks who come to me feeling exhausted. Whether it’s physical exhaustion from burnout, mental exhaustion from juggling too many roles, emotional exhaustion from draining relationships, or a values disconnect exhaustion from self-sacrificing to meet the needs of others before their own, I’ve learned most people are quite tired. Read more>>

Ashlee Hall

In advising any legal client, but especially tax clients prospectively on ways they can either take advantage of tax credits or make changes now to reap tax savings in the future, I always try to think in terms of “what’s the worst that can happen?” before giving the advice. As a lawyer, it’s my job to prepare my clients for all possible scenarios. There are many taxpayers who think it’s unlikely for the IRS to audit them, so I have to be sure I prepare them for that very scenario! Recently when evaluating a client’s situation to determine whether they were eligible for the Employee Retention Credit, a Covid-era tax credit designed to reward business owners for keeping employees on the payroll despite hardships, I advised a client that although they likely were eligible, they did not have enough operational metrics to demonstrate the eligibility to the IRS. The client was not happy to hear that they had more work to do before they could claim the funds, but they begrudgingly gathered the very metrics the IRS ended up asking for when the business owner was later audited. It was an easy task to provide the information to the IRS agent because thankfully the client had followed my advice months prior and had the data readily available. Read more>>