The platform built for trust & estate law. Not adapted from it.
Drafting is the beginning. Funding is the plan. Counsel gives your firm real-time visibility into every client's estate readiness — including what actually happens after the will is signed.
At a glance -- typical T&E firm
Based on early-access firm data. ROI varies by practice size. Counsel is currently in invitation-only beta — contact us to join.
The silent failure of estate planning.
Trusts get signed. Assets don't move. Executors inherit the confusion. Your firm loses the administration work. Every firm knows this problem. Nobody has built the tool to fix it.
Intake that never ends
Your paralegals spend 3–5 hours a week chasing clients for account lists, document copies, and beneficiary details — and another 2–3 on funding follow-up and annual review prep. Every one of those calls is a billable hour that shouldn't exist.
Unfunded trusts you can't see
Most revocable trusts are never fully funded. You have no system to track which assets are in the trust, which aren't, and which need attorney guidance — until the family calls in a crisis.
Administration work you lose
When a client dies, their executor panics and calls whoever answers first. Without a structured handoff, 20-40% of administration matters leave your firm before you even know there's an estate to administer.
No client-facing tool for this work
Your practice management tool tracks your billing and docket. It was not built to guide a client through funding their trust, organizing their digital life, or preparing their executor for what comes next.
The executor arrives unprepared
Your client passes. Their executor is a grieving spouse or adult child who doesn't know what accounts exist, where documents are, or what the trust actually holds. The 18-month process begins in chaos.
Annual reviews with no data
"Has anything changed?" is not a review strategy. Without a living record of what the client owns, you can't identify gaps, flag outdated beneficiaries, or bill appropriately for the conversation.
Purpose-built for the estate planning lifecycle.
Counsel, powered by Constellation, is the B2B platform for trust and estate firms. It is not a CRM. It is not a case management tool adapted for T&E work. It is the infrastructure that handles everything that happens between the signing appointment and the activation of the estate — and it does it in a way that reduces your liability, not increases it.
Your clients use Constellation — a private, guided digital estate platform — to organize their complete financial and digital life. You use Counsel to see their progress, track trust funding, manage tasks, and retain administration work when the time comes. The two products are connected. The data flows where it should. The access stays exactly where the client controls it.
“We track what happens after the will is signed — so trusts get funded, executors aren't left scrambling, and your firm keeps the administration work.”
Constellation -- Counsel positioning
Two products. One platform.
For your clients
Constellation
A private estate platform where clients organize their financial & digital life, designate executors, capture final wishes, and track trust funding — in 20 minutes.
For your firm
Counsel
The attorney-facing portal. See every client's readiness, track trust funding completion per asset, manage tasks across your team, and retain administration matters when activation occurs.
What your team sees every day.
Six purpose-built modules. Every one of them designed for the specific workflows of trust and estate practice — not adapted from general practice tools.
01 -- Client Portfolio
Your full roster at a glance
Every client, matter number, consent status, estate readiness %, trust funding progress, open tasks, and last activity — in one filterable table.
02 -- Matter Detail
Everything about one client
Estate progress by category, asset inventory summary, document status, trusted circle, open tasks, correspondence, and private firm notes — all on one page.
03 -- Trust Funding
Funding completion per asset
See exactly which assets have been retitled to the trust, which beneficiary designations are outstanding, and which items need your review — for every client.
04 -- Tasks & Reviews
Workflow across your team
Create tasks per client, assign to advisors or paralegals, set due dates, track completion. Admins see full team workload and spot imbalances.
05 -- Firm Branding
Your name on every touchpoint
Upload your firm's logo. Customize client invitation templates with merge fields. Verify your sending domain. The client relationship stays yours.
06 -- Privacy by Design
Less liability, not more
Your firm cannot see a client's estate data until they explicitly grant access. Every firm gets its own AWS KMS encryption key. Cryptographically isolated.
The trust funding workflow. The one no one else built.
Most revocable trusts created by estate attorneys are never fully funded. Constellation is in a unique position to fix this — because it already has the client's complete asset inventory.
During client onboarding, Constellation asks about trust status. Based on the answer — and the client's existing inventory — every asset gets categorized automatically. The client receives step-by-step guidance. You see funding completion on every matter.
When a client flags an asset for attorney review — a business interest, a crypto wallet, a question about their IRA — it appears directly on the Matter Detail page in Counsel. One click creates a task. You're in the conversation before they have to call.
Critical warning — surfaced automatically
IRAs, 401(k)s, and other qualified plans are flagged with a critical alert — never to be retitled to a trust without tax advice. Constellation catches this before your client makes a catastrophic mistake. You see the flag. You make the call.
How each asset gets categorized
Move into the trust
Bank accounts, brokerage accounts, real estate. Institution-specific guidance included — Fidelity's process is different from Schwab's.
Update beneficiary designation
Life insurance policies. Name the trust as beneficiary, not ownership transfer. Guided form request process.
Discuss with your attorney
Business interests, crypto, annuities, foreign property. Flagged directly to you in Counsel with full context.
Never retitle retirement accounts
IRAs, 401(k)s, 403(b)s. Flagged with a critical warning — routed to attorney review before any action is taken.
Important note
All guidance is general educational information, not legal advice. Every panel carries a disclaimer directing clients to consult their attorney. Constellation prepares them for the conversation — it doesn't replace it.
From signed documents to fully prepared estate.
Four steps. Most firms are in the portal in under 10 minutes. Clients complete their intake in 20.
Set up your firm in Counsel
Sign up, upload your logo, invite your team, and set roles — Admin, Attorney, Paralegal. You're in the portal and ready to send invitations in under 10 minutes.
Invite clients to Constellation
Send a branded invitation from your firm's email. Clients sign up, your firm is pre-linked. They complete a guided digital intake — no PDF, no phone-tag.
Client grants access, you get visibility
The client controls what you see. Once consent is granted, you see readiness %, trust funding progress, flagged items, and asset categories.
Guide, track, and retain
Add notes and tasks. Track trust funding completion. When activation occurs, the executor walks into a complete record — and your firm retains the matter.
Not your practice management tool. Not adapted. Purpose-built.
General practice management tools were not built for the estate planning lifecycle. The gaps are structural, not cosmetic.
| Capability | Practice Management Tools | Constellation + Counsel |
|---|---|---|
| Estate-specific client intake | Generic matter intake. PDF forms emailed back and forth. | Guided digital intake. Structured asset capture. Client completes in 20 minutes. |
| Trust funding tracking | Not built. Tracked manually in spreadsheets by paralegals. | Per-asset funding status. Retitling guidance. Completion % visible in real time. |
| Client-facing estate portal | Limited or none for T&E-specific workflows. | Full consumer app with inventory, document vault, trusted circle, and activation protocol. |
| Executor handoff | Not handled. Falls entirely to the family. | Verified activation protocol. Organized record. Executor connected to your firm. |
| Per-firm data isolation | Shared infrastructure. Standard SaaS architecture. | AWS KMS per-firm encryption keys. Cryptographic isolation from every other firm. |
| Firm-branded client communications | Generic or limited branding on client-facing emails. | Custom logo. Editable templates with merge fields. Verified sender domain. |
| Administration retention | Passive. Depends on the client calling back. | Activation protocol keeps the executor connected to your firm by design. |
| Digital asset coverage | Not addressed. | 100+ account categories. Crypto wallet guidance. Digital vault with executor access controls. |
The numbers. For a firm your size.
The ROI of Counsel comes from two sources. Each one alone covers the annual cost.
Estimated annual return -- 4-attorney T&E firm -- 30-40 active matters
Staff time recovered annually
7 hrs/wk (3–5 intake + 2–3 funding & review prep) x $65/hr x 52 wks
Administration revenue retained
3 additional matters x $8,500
Annual cost of Counsel
$299/month
Net annual return on Counsel
Counsel pays for itself in about three weeks
Built for firms that understand liability.
Most firms avoid storing client digital assets because the risk is real. We built a model where you can help without holding what you shouldn't.
What your firm sees
- Client name, email, and onboarding status
- Completion percentage and category-level progress
- Trust funding status and per-asset completion
- Items flagged for attorney review
- Private firm notes, tasks, and audit trail
- Estate content — only after consent is explicitly granted
What your firm never sees
- Passwords, PINs, or authentication credentials
- Raw document contents in the client's encrypted vault
- Anything the client has marked private
- Any content if the client revokes consent
- Data from any other firm on the platform
We built this for attorneys. We expected the hard questions.
Answers to the questions a trusts-and-estates attorney asks before recommending any platform to clients.
Does recommending Constellation create E&O exposure for my firm?
No. Constellation is a client-directed organizational tool, not a fiduciary product. Your firm does not manage, hold, or have custody of any client assets through the platform. The client independently organizes their digital and financial life; you see a read-only dashboard of their progress. The relationship is analogous to recommending a client use a filing system — the recommendation carries no additional liability beyond your existing duty of competence.
Who owns the data — the client, the firm, or Constellation?
The client owns their data. Your firm's notes, tasks, and internal records belong to your firm. Constellation is a processor, not an owner. If a client revokes consent, your firm loses read access to their estate data immediately — but retains all firm-authored notes and task history. If a client cancels their account, they can export everything first. Your firm's data is never deleted without your authorization.
How does Constellation handle breach notification?
In the event of a security incident affecting client data, Constellation notifies both the affected client and their linked firm within 72 hours, consistent with GDPR and state breach notification requirements. The notification includes: what data was affected, what remediation steps were taken, and what the client and firm should do. Your firm is not the data controller and does not bear the notification obligation — Constellation does.
Where is the unauthorized-practice-of-law line, and how does the product stay on the correct side?
Constellation provides general educational guidance about estate processes — which institution to contact, what documents are typically needed, how trust funding generally works. It never drafts legal documents, interprets specific legal provisions, or recommends legal strategies. Every guidance panel carries a disclaimer directing the client to consult their attorney. Houston, the executor AI copilot, is explicitly scoped to procedural and organizational guidance — it does not provide legal advice. The product is designed to prepare clients for the conversation with you, not replace it.
How is activation fraud prevented? What stops a bad actor from triggering access?
Activation requires the executor to present the Estate Card — a private activation code known only to the account holder and their designated executor. The activation triggers a mandatory grace period (configurable by the account holder, default 72 hours) during which the account holder can cancel the activation from any device. During the grace period, the executor has no access to estate data. Additional safeguards include: email and SMS notification to the account holder on any activation attempt, rate limiting on activation attempts, and a full audit trail of every access event. Constellation does not verify death independently — the grace period and owner-veto mechanism are the primary fraud prevention layer.
How do I introduce Constellation to my clients?
Most firms introduce it at three points: (1) at the signing appointment, as a follow-up deliverable — "here is the tool that helps you actually fund the trust and organize everything we discussed"; (2) in the engagement letter, as a recommended complementary service; (3) as an annual review deliverable — the Readiness Rating gives you a concrete metric to discuss. We provide customizable email templates with your firm branding and merge fields. The client invitation comes from your firm, not from Constellation.
Financial advisor, not an attorney?
Constellation supports advisor-linked plans too — clients grant you scoped visibility into readiness and funding without exposing account detail. Same portal, different workflow.
Tell us about your practice →Join our beta — invitation only — now accepting a limited number of firms
Ready to see it with your own client data?
We're building Counsel with a small group of T&E firms before we scale. A 30-minute call. A sandbox firm. We'll show you the portal with sample clients and walk through what your practice would look like inside it.
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