To achieve these three goals, the family set up several "pots" of money, each of which would be available to a lineal descendant for one of the three core principles. If a member of the family needed funds for one of the three reasons, he would apply to the family council.
In the case of college funding, the funding could be parceled out as a grant or a loan, or a combination of the two. The final breakdown would depend upon the cost of the education, the applicant's assets and the applicant's educational prospects.
If the request was for funds to cover medical care, among the factors would be whether the proposed procedure was elective or necessary and whether insurance could cover the costs.
Members of the family were also allowed to apply to the council for housing assistance to meet the goal of living within proximity to other lineal descendants.
The idea behind using three separate funds for buttressing the family's core values was that it would allow the family council to prioritize the use of the funds. For example, it was soon discovered that access to medical care was the top concern for family members, so funding for that mission was increased.
Finally, one cannot discuss long-term estate planning without mentioning what every law student has studied since the Middle Ages: the rule against perpetuities. Basically, the rule prohibits the "dead hand" or "mortmain" control of assets long after a person has passed away. Frequently, such rules are written so that when someone sets up a document for the future control of assets, it must expire within a certain number of years (commonly 21 years) beyond the life of someone living on the day when that grantor dies. Some states (such as South Dakota) have eliminated such rules, but a 100-year plan does not trigger such concerns.
Timothy Lappen is a California-based attorney who is the founder and chairman of the family office group at the law firm of Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell LLP (www.jmbm.com/familyoffice). Scott Harshman, a JMBM trusts and estates partner, assisted with this article.