Somita Basu

The Confident Retirement Podcast with Brett Kris Flammang and Mark Picchi Episode 01: Somita Basu

Somita Basu is one of the owners for the Norton Basu LLP. Together with Zakiya Norton, her partner, they use their diverse background and perspective to educate their clients giving practical advice with compassion and world class service.

Like every entrepreneur is, Somita’s road to Norton Basu LLP was not a straight line. She was originally from Nebraska and went overseas. She stayed in India for 3 years. She then moved to Singapore for a decade and then decided to shift gears and pursue a legal career. She attended law school remotely and flew into California to take the bar exam and passed. When Somita finally moved to the Bay Area in 2013, she decided to be a volunteer and that’s where she met her law partner Zakiya who she joined the legal clinic with on the same day. That’s how she came to practice Estate Planning.

Somita serves as the Chair-Elect for the Solo and Small Firm Section of the California Lawyers Association, past editor of The Practitioner (the Section’s premier publication), and was on the influential Project 2021 Committee for the CLA to determine the future of the association. She is also the Co-Chair of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee of the California Lawyers Association. Somita gives back to the community through her role as a board member of the non-profit, Justice At Last, where she a member of the Fundraising Committee

Listen to this dynamic The Confident Retirement Podcast episode with Somita Basu about estate planning and how it is important to your financial health.

Here is what to expect on this week’s show:

Somita gives us a peek of her story and how she ended up being in the Estate planning field.

She also shares the practice areas and parts of the business that she likes the most.

Somita gives some misconceptions about being an attorney and circumstances she has encountered.

Most importantly, she talks about how estate planning is important, not just to people who has million dollars but to anyone who has assets and how money should be used as a tool.

Connect with Somita Basu

Website: www.nortonbasu.com/

Twitter: @nortonbasu

Facebook: www.facebook.com/nortonbasu

LinkedIn: Norton Basu LLP

Connect with Kris and Mark

Facebook facebook.com/kris.flammang.1

Twitter @kflammang

#MarkPicchi

Highlights:

[04:13-04:31]

“I think one thing that we are confronted with all the time is that death is a part of life, it's going to happen to everybody just like taxes. You know, it's very true. I think not confronting that fact head on causes a lot of problems for the people you leave behind.”

[11:12-11:38]

“A revocable living trust is very easy to understand if you think about it as like a gift box. So, it's like an open box. During your lifetime, you put all your assets in there, it's a separate entity, it's a box, it's different from you. You're putting all your assets in there. When you pass away, the top of the box goes on, nothing else can be put in there. The bottom opens and it goes out to whoever you say.

[36:47-37:21]

I think, estate planning is really just a fundamental part of your financial life. People don't think of it as part of your financial life, but it is one of the building blocks of your finances and your financial health. So, people will think about the rate of return on their investment account, but they don't think about what will happen to this account. If something happens to me, if I'm no longer here, what happens to that account, and that's a very important part of it, right? So that's your legacy. That's what you're passing on, and you don't just want to pass it on, you want to pass it on along with your values.

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