It wasn't so much that Frederick Hertz, founder of samesexlaw.com and an attorney providing legal counsel to same-sex partners in Oakland, Calif., was a keynote speaker at the Financial Planning Association's (FPA) annual gathering in September, or that the topic of his speech was financial planning for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. It wasn't even that his address drew a huge crowd. It was more that the crowd was overwhelmingly made up of "straight financial planners with LGBT clients," all of whom, Hertz believes, were "eager for information and education on financial planning for the LGBT community."

"Historically, there was always a sense that gay clients wouldn't feel comfortable with straight financial planners," says Hertz, who recently authored the book Making It Legal: A Guide to Same-Sex Marriage, Domestic Partnerships & Civil Unions.

"But while there may still be some degree of discomfort with straight financial advisors and gay clients, I really think those days have past, and today there's an increasing sense of responsibility among the financial planning community at large to want to understand the particular financial planning needs of the LGBT community in order to serve it in the best way possible."

It's true, says Sharon Rich, co-founder of PridePlanners, an organization established in 1999 to stay abreast of all issues related to financial planning for the LGBT community, and that has been at the forefront of the movement to bring about awareness of these efforts. The sea change in both mentality and approach from the financial advisory community toward financial planning for the gay and lesbian community has been huge, she says, and in the 12 years that PridePlanners has been actively holding conferences on the topic of LGBT financial planning, the momentum has been tremendous. "This has become an area that every planner needs to be sensitive to," says Rich, "and not only because they may have gay and lesbian clients, but also because of the way that society is changing, they might have clients whose children are LGBT, or even their clients' parents might be gay or lesbian."

And now, New York State's landmark passage of the gay marriage law this past summer means that things have reached a point where financial advisors-gay or straight-have no choice but to get up to speed in terms of serving the LGBT community.

New York is the seventh state in the country to okay same-sex marriage, and "because it is such a large state, the passage of the law affects scores of financial advisors," says John LeBlanc, a certified financial planner with Back Bay Financial Group in Boston. "The effects of the law will be so widespread that advisors just have to stay on top of it and make sure that they know how it works and how it's going to affect their clients' financial planning."

Changing Mentalities
LeBlanc believes that there's been a huge change in mentalities, and more and more financial advisors across the nation are now looking beyond the borders of traditional society, willing to recognize the fact that there are many different kinds of people with different sorts of financial planning needs that they need to help address even if their motivation is driven more by the desire to tap into the new business opportunities that the LGBT community offers. "Society is changing so much from your typical family of husband, wife and 2.5 kids, and I do think more advisors are looking to think outside the box with respect to the profession," he says. "Even something like divorce can change the profile of your client completely and totally alter a financial plan. Advisors have to learn to work with new social structures."

But while society continues to evolve, and the traditional definitions of what constitutes marriage, family, parenting and partnerships continue to change, the legalities involved remain extremely complex. Serving the financial planning, tax and estate planning needs of the LGBT community in particular is no easy task, LeBlanc says, and advisors who want to be in this space have their work cut out for them.

Call it legal bias, as Hertz does, or call it what you will, the complexities of the laws are such that many financial advisors feel intimidated by the task at hand, he says. "I know how to weave the bias factor into my discussion so that people know it's not me, but the law, that's the harbinger of complication," he says. "But many advisors don't know how to do this, and so they just see how difficult things are and they give up because they feel it's a hopeless and chaotic space."