In order to best serve her clients, Hatch said she had to get creative and beef up the staff to include professionals such as CFP's, a CPA and an estate attorney, “so we could basically advise under one roof,’’ she said. She has 11 professionals on staff.
Hatch recalls often working with unmarried couples who had been together for years and had joint finances. She said in order to prevent them from being taxed she would have to do a 50/50 divide and title it ‘joint tenants in common.’ “We didn’t have the benefit of marriage, so we would literally have to carve up a lifetime of assets and put it in a living trust.’’
She said there was a time when same-sex marriage was legal at the federal level but states did not recognize it. So some of her clients would file taxes jointly at the federal level but single at the state level. “It was a mess. It was chaos for the clients,’’ she said.
When the U.S. Supreme Court declared same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states in 2015, Hatch said she thought things would become simpler for the LGBT community. ”But that’s not the case,’’ she said, adding that a lot of people came to the business “because they want to work with people who got them.’’
And because different states have different rules, that posed a challenge, Hatch said. “There were lots of people who wanted to come to me prior to marriage,’’ she said. Then there were those who took the plunge and tied the knot and wanted to know, “what did I do,’’ she said.
Hatch said Christopher Street has a unique relationship with clients. “We become their planning partners. We do lots of financial planning to project what the future will look like. We feel we can add value to their lives,’’ she said, noting that about a dozen times a year she gets a few clients who are retired. “We love playing a role that help people with issues that impact their lives,’’ she said.
These days Hatch has here her sights set on millennials. “They are progressive. They see themselves as more mission-driven and they are looking for business that’s related to their value,’’ she said. She added that they stand to inherit a lot of money, but they are very cautious.
She also would like to see more diversity in recruiting people for the industry. “I think we need to reach out to more women and people of diverse backgrounds,’’ she said. “The quality you need is empathy and that really works for women in particular,’’ she said.
Hatch said she is a fan of career changers and said her firm has hired a couple. “Teachers, social workers, fundraisers, therapists … they would be good for this field,’’ she said.