Estate Planning: Lessons Learned from Natina Reed

Natina Reed died on October 27, 2012 and was best known as a member of the girl group Blaque and as an actress in the popular cheerleading film Bring It On. Reed passed away after being involved in a tragic car accident after being hit by a car as a pedestrian. He was thirty-two years old at the time of his death. There are many estate planning lessons to be learned from Natina Reed.

The most important lesson is that there is no good age to start thinking about estate planning. Reed was in his early thirties and, like most people in their twenties and thirties, it is generally thought that it is not necessary to start thinking about inheritance planning or to think that death is always a possibility. A sudden fatal accident is not uncommon for many young people, and there should be no age to start thinking about consulting an estate planning attorney. Once you turn eighteen and become an adult, it’s also time to start thinking about a succession plan. There are too many public examples of celebrities dying at a young age or prematurely to be a lesson for the average person to come up with a plan just in case.

Another lesson to be learned is that it is absolutely vital to have a succession plan if you have a child. Reed was the mother of a ten-year-old son when she died. Having a last will and testament is the only way to formally name a potential successor guardian for a minor in many jurisdictions. No decision is as important to parents as choosing who will care for a child if the child is no longer alive. In the absence of a written document, such as a will, a family court may step in and choose a guardian who may be different from the guardian the parent would have chosen. There may also be disagreements between family members about who should be the child’s guardian, which could result in arguments and fights. A public fight that spreads to court with negative facts can result in no family member being chosen as guardian and the state raising the child in foster care. An estate plan is needed to remove doubts about such an important decision and to ensure that the child is cared for by the person the parent chooses.