Kensington’s Randall Brown in as new President at LeTip

By Vince Meehan

Randall Brown is the new president of the La Jolla chapter of LeTip, a nationwide networking group founded in 1978. Although having been in the chapter for only few years, Brown took this opportunity as both a gesture of dedication as well as gratitude for his new friends. As an attorney, Brown credits LeTip with helping him make and find essential connections that makes his practice a success and helps it to grow. The group allows Brown to receive as well as direct clients to business owners that he respects and trusts.

“LeTip is a networking group and our chapter is based in La Jolla. It works with business owners in order to provide basically a place where everyone can exchange business tips,” Brown offered. “So what we do is we allow people to join the group and they take on a category. It can be carpet cleaning, an electrical contractor, or like me, an estate planning attorney. So they have that category, and they are the only people that have that category in the group, and we refer business to those categories and we try to foster a business relationship between the members so it builds trust and it builds sort of a way of passing these referrals to each other.”

Not only does LeTip help Brown, but it also helps his friends and family members who he refers to his networking group members. “It’s a way that we hold each other accountable, because obviously if I’m going to give somebody a referral, sometimes that referral is going to be my friends, my family members and people like that. So we really develop a business reputation between each other.”

LeTip has 7 chapters in the San Diego area, and the La Jolla chapter meets once a week at the Sheraton La Jolla Hotel. This chapter now boasts more than 50 members with some driving all the way from Temecula to attend the meetings. They are currently celebrating their 40th anniversary as the oldest chapter of the nationwide organization.

Brown worked his way up to president by first doing small tasks for the board, then becoming Secretary, then Vice-President, and now President. He says he’s happy to serve on the board as president because he is grateful for the success that has come to him through LeTip. “Its really one of the very best things I’ve ever done, to get involved with this in this type of networking, I don’t do any other sort of marketing for my business. Attorneys have limitations on how we can solicit business and so this is a reputational form of marketing. I’ve been in here for four years and its been an unbelievable shot in the arm for my business, the members are terrific about referring business and of course, you have one good transaction and that begets another transaction, and pretty soon the people who referred you, well their referral is referring you and then that referral is referring you and it just kind of works like that!”

Brown serves as an attorney who specializes in in estate planning and has been practicing for over 20 years. “I started out as a divorce lawyer and I did that for about 2 or 3 years, and the last 17 or 18 years I’ve been focused on doing estate planning. That’s basically procuring all the documents you need for when you either become incapacitated or you pass away. That’s your will, your trust, your power of attorney, your health care director –all those things.”

Brown says that estate planning is recommended for anyone who has property or assets that will be passed along to heirs. “If a person has not planned for the event, the property will be distributed through the state as a probate issue.”

He adds that this process is notoriously cumbersome and is definitely something to be avoided. “It can be a long time and it can be a lot of red tape, and it can be expensive because there are statutory fees associate with that as opposed to were you have a trust, the trust is going to go right past probate and its going to distribute the property according to your instructions, and in the most tax efficient and economical way possible. And this pales in the comparison to the cost of doing it through a probate. Either way, there’s going to be an estate plan out there for you!”

At a Glance:

LeTip of La Jolla

Phone: (858) 519-8181

Instagram: @LeTipLaJolla

Randall Brown

Website: www.BrownLawFirm.org

Phone: (619) 546-8320

Email: info@BrownLawFirm.org