Safeguard Your Future: Navigating Asset Protection with Attorney Blake Harris

Stephen S. (00:05.147)
All right, welcome to the show where we interview the nation’s leading real estate entrepreneurs and service providers to the real estate space. Welcome back to the show. If you’ve been with us before, it’s Stephen Schmidt here and I am with attorney Blake Harris. Today we’re going to be talking about asset protection and his entrepreneurial journey. So at Investor Fuel, just keep in mind, we help real estate investors, service providers and real estate entrepreneurs, two to five X their businesses to allow them to build the businesses they’ve always wanted.

to allow them to live the lives they’ve always dreamed up. Now, if you’re joining us today, you can see that my friend, my new friend who is in the law practice space has a wonderful jacket on here that we got to talk about at the beginning of the show. So without further ado, I’d like to welcome you. Thanks for being here and tell us a little bit about how you got into this space.

Attorney Blake Harris (01:00.782)
Well, Stephen, thank you very much for that introduction. It’s an honor to be here. It’s an honor to speak and it’s an honor to be able to speak to all of your listeners and viewers. What I do is I help my clients position themselves so that in the event that they ever go through a lawsuit or a divorce, assets remain protected.

As far as my background is concerned, it goes, I think back to when I was a child. I was in kindergarten and each day the teacher would give us a dollar for, our parents would give us a dollar to buy lunch and then the teacher would collect that dollar. I learned as a kindergartner, if you didn’t have your dollar, they would still serve you lunch. So after about a month of me not having that dollar, the school called my parents. Parents said, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Blake has been getting a dollar every single day. And then I come to school one day and find the cubby that I’d stored all my hard earned cash.

had been taken from me.

And at that moment I realized accumulating wealth is really of no value if you can’t protect that money. So I ended up going to law school. I was inspired by very good trust professor. Although his comments were this, don’t ever set up an offshore trust. And I said to him after class, why would you say such a thing? And his response was, don’t set up an offshore trust unless certain criteria is met. And I was like, okay, you continue to teach the rest of the law students not to set up offshore trust. I’m going to be the one who goes into this industry. And then shortly after I graduated law school,

I worked for another trust firm and then started my own. And when I started my own, my office was located a few blocks away from another attorney’s office. His name was Barry Engel. Barry Engel was the OG in the offshore industry. He wrote the initial legislation that the Cook Islands passed back in the 1980s. And then he was very much a mentor of mine for many years, taught me a lot about the industry and how to do this type of work. I then got out and I traveled. I’ve traveled to almost 50 different countries. I’ve met with trust companies, bankers, protectors all throughout the world.

Attorney Blake Harris (02:50.384)
have developed a global network which I don’t think anybody else in the industry comes close to in terms of our ability to have service providers and not just service providers but the best service providers throughout the world for asset protection planning. So my firm we focus exclusively on offshore asset protection planning. We work with clients throughout the world. The majority of the clients that come to us are here in the United States because well here in United States is the land of the lawsuit.

Stephen S. (03:19.807)
So you went from being in kindergarten, five, six years old, and somebody stole your kindergarten cash from you that you just thought, I’m gonna get the thing one way or another. And then that sparked, man, how do I keep what I get? And then we ended up here now.

Attorney Blake Harris (03:37.28)
Exactly and there’s a lot of different adults who have done a great job accumulating wealth, building big businesses, but I can tell you a few hours of asset protection planning can do more for a family than decades of working.

Stephen S. (03:51.241)
Now, tell me a little bit about this because most of the people that are listening to the show, entrepreneurs, people that are building, are investing, are trying to accumulate, many of them are in that accumulation phase of life. So with that, who is asset protection maybe not for? Or would you recommend everybody has a consultancy or something like that with someone that does it?

Attorney Blake Harris (04:15.65)
Well, mean, mean, asset protection is for anyone who has assets is the short version of that.

The type of planning that I do, it generally starts out with clients whose net worth is around one million. And while some of our clients are very wealthy, Deca and a few cent of millionaires, most of our clients have between about one and $10 million in assets. We do have a handful of clients whose net worth is a little bit under a million. But to justify setting up an offshore trust to put up that level of protection, to prepare for the level of threat that would be coming at you, because if you’ve got $50,000, no attorney is going to be really aggressive about coming after you. But if your net worth

Stephen S. (04:28.405)
Okay.

Attorney Blake Harris (04:52.922)
gets to two, three, four, five million dollars, that becomes very appetizing for a plaintiff attorney. So the majority of clients we work with, their net worth is somewhere between about one and ten or maybe two to twenty million dollars in assets. As far as the other parameters we look at, it’s the optics of the situation. Is the client clean? Are there any pending litigation? And it’s definitely better to do the asset protection before any pending litigation arises. But if it’s a minor claim, maybe there’s insurance that can cover that claim. We may still be able to

use a trust to protect against future litigation and we might be able to do a little bit of damage mitigation from the current situation. Also the client’s background. Now if the client has

DUI or POP possession in their background trust companies don’t care about those type of incidences but if you have been involved in money laundering or drug trafficking you’re not going to be able to get on board with the trust company. So as long as it’s a relatively clean background in a relatively clean current situation and their net worth is more than a million dollars we can do a lot to put them in a better position.

Stephen S. (05:42.015)
Hmm.

Stephen S. (05:54.844)
So now with that what are some of the differences between like offshore trust versus domestic?

Attorney Blake Harris (06:02.816)
So there’s a very simple difference. One of those trusts that you just mentioned, either the offshore or the domestic, I’m gonna let you guess which one, one of those trusts can be broken by a US court. Do you wanna guess what that is, Stephen?

Stephen S. (06:16.363)
Probably the one that’s within the bounds of the United States.

Attorney Blake Harris (06:20.694)
You’re not just handsome, you’re smart as well, Stephen. So yes, you’re absolutely correct. Under Article 4, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution, every single state must give full faith and credit to the court orders and judgments of every other state. So just because you’ve created a trust in one state doesn’t mean that another state who has a court order against you could use that and enforce that court order to break the trust. We have seen case law in many situations where domestic trusts have been compromised.

Stephen S. (06:23.498)
try.

Attorney Blake Harris (06:48.204)
confess early in my career, I set up a few domestic asset protection trusts. For the past several years, we’ve only done offshore trust. But when we have had to negotiate using a domestic trust, the leverage is very weak. It’s much weaker than an offshore trust. With a domestic trust, plaintiff attorneys know that if they push hard enough, if they are relentless, there’s a pretty good chance that they’re going to be able to break into that trust. Now, if you have a trust that is offshore,

A US attorney can’t even bring a case there. have to be licensed in the Cook Islands or Nevis or Belize or one of the jurisdictions we would set up a trust. And what we’ve seen is not only are plaintiffs much more willing to talk settlement and take a smaller settlement offer, but in some cases, plaintiffs find out that they would have to go up against an offshore trust and they’ll simply drop the case from the very beginning.

Stephen S. (07:41.099)
Okay, so now I now maybe maybe it’s just my thought process here but for someone that might be a little less cerebral than you and I but they’s rich, you know what I mean? How does that like affect them like in the real world? Like what are some of those ways that they are protected? Who are some of the people that might be coming after their assets? What does that look like for somebody in those situations like in the real world?

Attorney Blake Harris (08:08.728)
So the three most common types of lawsuits, number one, business disputes, whether this is an employee who gets upset, a supplier, a partner, somebody you’ve invested with or somebody who’s invested with you, for whatever reason, business disputes are very common. You want to have well-drafted contracts. You want to have ADR, Alternative Dispute Resolution, all of your contracts as well. You want to treat your employees and customers with care because that all helps to reduce your chance of being sued. But if you’re successful enough in business and life,

chance are someone’s going to want to buy to that success and I consider it a badge of success in the United States. If you’re successful enough with business, if you’re successful enough you can expect to be sued. The other type of lawsuit which is quite common, accidents, often car accidents or somebody injuring themself on a piece of real estate that you own. And the third

And now this is not going to be the most romantic advice you’ve ever heard, Stephen, but that’s to sign a prenuptial or postnuptial agreement, deciding who gets what while the water’s calm is definitely much cheaper than fighting it out in court once people have gone in different directions. However, prenuptial and postnuptial agreements are frequently disregarded. So it is much safer to have your assets owned by an offshore trust or do a combination of a prenuptial agreement and an offshore trust for the best protection.

Stephen S. (09:27.627)
Okay, so now why is that like if somebody puts like a pre pre-nup in place which I mean personally my wife and we and Me and my wife both are like hey, we actually want to put one in place now We don’t really have a whole lot to protect right now. So we just haven’t gotten around to doing a post-nup But we’re on the same page of like hey if we can keep it’s not even from the principle of like us expecting our marriage to fail necessarily But we look at it as like we want to keep the government out of our business

So, and that’s the best way that we can do it, where we can say, hey, if in the off chance something happens, we end things on our terms right now while we’re good, you know? Just so that way the kids are protected, we’re protected, you know, all that kind of stuff. with that, when you said that they can be disregarded, what does that mean exactly? Like a pre-number post not being disregarded.

Attorney Blake Harris (10:15.924)
So family law courts can sometimes be very result oriented. And although there is the law in place, although there’s a prenuptial agreement in place, if a court decides that it’s not fair what was written and that they have a better solution for what would be just than what’s on paper,

They frequently disregard prenuptial agreements. It is important that it’s properly drafted, that each of you have your own attorney, that each of your own attorneys signs off on the prenuptial postnuptial agreement. However, if a court wants to break a domestic structure, a domestic agreement, they have the power to do so and they do exercise that power from time to time.

Stephen S. (10:53.919)
Wow, really? So having the offshore trust then is a further layer of protection for that relationship, like in that situation.

Attorney Blake Harris (11:03.35)
Yes, or it is the protection, correct?

Stephen S. (11:06.379)
okay, I gotcha. Yeah, absolutely. is there any specific advice other than like, just don’t get sued? Is there any specific advice for when you start becoming successful, like you said, the badge of success? Is there anything people can do to just avoid it altogether? Is it pretty much inevitable if you just hit a level of success? Like it’s just gonna happen. What can people expect?

Attorney Blake Harris (11:31.02)
Well, I mean, you can always be in a better position. There’s always the best move on the chessboard and don’t let flashy. Don’t advertise your wealth to anybody beyond those who need to know about it. If you have a, if you’re driving a car.

As most of us in America are, as much car insurance as your agent will sell you. Insurance is a helpful buffer between your assets and a creditor. However, insurance claims are often denied. Some claims go beyond policy limits. Some are not covered. It is definitely wise to have insurance, but don’t rely on the insurance alone. And then simply make yourself an unattractive target to sue. And by owning nothing and controlling everything via your trust, you’re going to be in a very good position to either

avoid being sued, be an unappetizing target, or negotiate with some power in the event that you are sued.

Stephen S. (12:23.797)
Yeah, absolutely. And so with an offshore trust, because I am pretty familiar with the concept of owning nothing but controlling everything, right? So in these types of situations, like when you’re getting sued, for example, and you’re trying to be an unattracted target, right? What type of protections are in place with an offshore compared to domestic, if any?

Attorney Blake Harris (12:48.93)
Well, interesting enough, the offshore trust companies are better regulated and supervised than the domestic trust companies. The trust companies in these various countries that we work with.

the trust industry is a vital part of their economy and they guard it very well and very closely. On top of that, when it comes to actually taking cash or a brokerage account and moving that under the trust, we don’t typically use Cook Islands that we do in some cases. We typically use Switzerland. And with Switzerland, you have a safer banking system than you do in the United States. They keep much more cash on hand. They engage in a lot less risky activity. And so what we’re able to provide our clients is the best of both worlds.

of protection typically Cook Islands, Nevis or Belize combined with the best banking system in Switzerland and this is where our clients really get the utmost peace of mind. Along with that when you work with my firm and we have

very likely set up more offshore trust than any other law firm over the past few years. Not only do you get access to myself and our team of providers, you also get our experience where we have never once had a client lose a penny from the trust. You get the utmost peace of mind that if anything comes your way, you know that you are being taken care of by the most reputable people in the industry.

Stephen S. (14:03.819)
What moments do you have within that business that just make you go, damn I love this. What are those moments for you?

Attorney Blake Harris (14:13.398)
Okay, here’s one. I received a call from a client a few months ago at this point. He hired us maybe five years ago.

maybe seven years ago at this point, a while back, and he went through some time. It was quite a process that he was going back and forth negotiating, not knowing what the plaintiff was going to do. They had a fairly aggressive plaintiff, and ultimately, it got resolved without the client needing to pay anything. Now, I do tell clients this is not a structure for…

avoiding paying unless it’s a BS claim. it’s a BS claim, if it’s a bogus claim, I say don’t pay anything. But if it’s a legitimate claim, I say pay something but pay something reasonable. And this was one where I was actually advising the client to make some settlement offer. They held back against my advice, which clients are allowed to do. And ultimately the plaintiff just ended up dropping their case. They just wore down so much. The client calls me up and says, Blake, the trust did exactly what you said it was going to do. That felt very good.

and knowing that he and his wife were going to go into a much safer, more comfortable retirement because of working with my firm, that was a really wildly awesome moment. And I love when I hear that when we get the client to the results. I also love when clients say, we haven’t had to use the trust yet.

but it has brought me so much peace of mind, so much confidence. I’m not running my business based on fear anymore. I sleep better at night. I am an attorney by trade, but very much a healer by my heart. And if I can calm people’s anxiety and let them go about their personal relationships better because they’re not stressing over some lawsuit, that’s a wonderful thing. And on top of that, I don’t know how many wonderful moments I get to list as an answer to this question, but I very much love what I do every single day. I work with people from all

Attorney Blake Harris (16:03.088)
throughout the world. got an awesome team at my law firm where we get things done. We do good work for clients and don’t take my word for it. We’ve got reviews you can check out. I think we’ve got over 70 Google reviews. believe everyone’s a five out of five stars. And it’s just fun getting to work with people from all over the world. And the client base we work with is overwhelmingly great. They’re entrepreneurs, they’re forward thinking, they are…

generally very great to work with. So it’s been quite a journey building the business I have. It’s been something that’s really taken my full time and commitment for the past 10 plus years, but I’ve absolutely loved it and I’m very excited for what’s to come ahead.

Stephen S. (16:43.263)
Love that. Yeah, I like what you said there, that phrase you said where you’re an attorney by trade, but a healer at heart. So really your business, your business is almost a mission for you as well, is what it sounds like.

Attorney Blake Harris (16:56.942)
Well, I will say that freedom, which I think is a very important thing, I don’t think people even understand what freedom means. To me, freedom is not getting to do what you want to do. Freedom is not having to do the things you don’t want to do. And money is very much the gateway to freedom. And freedom does not exist. Money does not exist without protection. And we’re very much…

helping to keep our clients free, free to have a comfortable retirement, to send their kids to the schools they want to send their kids to, to do the things they want to do in their every single day life. I will be fair, I’m running a business and I do want to be able to support my business with it and I don’t know that I would say that setting off offshore trust is necessarily my passion, though I do love it and enjoy it, I would say I’m more passionate maybe about my Muay Thai hobbies and traveling and some other things that I do with my children.

Stephen S. (17:49.163)
That’s awesome, man I have never heard it put the way you put it freedom isn’t Because you hear that everywhere doing what you want when you want with who you want like that’s the dream and whatever else but you put it so in The same exact way but so different where you said freedom is avoiding doing the things you don’t want to do and I’ve never thought of it like that and I’m like man That is so true

Attorney Blake Harris (18:12.046)
Correct.

Stephen S. (18:16.651)
Because how many people truly get to a point where they can do whatever they want whenever they want with whoever they want and still potentially might have to do a bunch of things they don’t want to?

Attorney Blake Harris (18:17.486)
Yes.

Attorney Blake Harris (18:27.106)
Correct, becoming successful is something you don’t want to be successful at is one of the greatest curses. Having a 50 year marriage with the wrong person is not what you want to do. It’s not about getting things and having more things. It’s really about being content with what you have and having the ability to say no.

Stephen S. (18:36.671)
Mm.

Stephen S. (18:46.951)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Now you mentioned, you mentioned Muay Thai and some other passions. You also have one of the things we spoke about before the show, Blake, was you had said you have a goal to be the coolest attorney on social media. So, which you said, admittedly, there’s not a high bar for that per se, but where does that come from? And tell me about some of these hobbies that would just feed through to your incredible personality and figure here.

Attorney Blake Harris (19:17.036)
Well, Stephen, I appreciate you saying that. don’t know that everyone agrees with that, but I think a few people may be on board with you. Well, you know, I’m going to kind of just…

roll back the clocks a little bit to when I graduated law school about 15 years ago. They told me I had to get a job, so I went and got a job. put on a suit and a tie every single day, and I really had no idea what I was talking about, like most new attorneys. As I got farther into my career, and I got more comfortable with what I was doing, and I narrowed my practice to just doing offshore trust, and I got to the point where we can do what we do while we’re sleeping. It’s very much down to a science.

comfortable in what it is that you’re doing, you’re selling, you’re talking about, you’re the services you’re providing, the other people in your network that you work with. Once you get to that point, it becomes fun. I work with a great team, both internally and externally, and clients come to me because they want peace of mind. And if I’m a real stressed out, nervous-seeming attorney that doesn’t seem like he can take care of his own life, people aren’t going to trust me. And it’s very important.

that I communicate that trust and I do that by doing things that make me respect myself more. Yes, taking care of our work, responding quickly to clients, making sure that every client as much as possible has a great experience with them. And then beyond that, living a life that matches what I do for work and matches my clientele. I spent about half my time here in Miami, beautiful Miami Beach, and I spent about half my time traveling around the country to go on podcasts to promote and

other attorneys on how to do this type of work. I have taught in lots of continuing education classes to other attorneys in the field and meeting with people internationally who can help provide more value to our client base. As I mentioned, yes, I do a bit of Muay Thai kickboxing. It is very much a great thing to do for self-respect. I find that I respect myself more. Then once I’ve thrown a thousand punches early in the morning, nothing’s going to come up during the day that it upsets me. It’s a very calming route.

Attorney Blake Harris (21:26.554)
team and that calmness comes through on phone calls with potential clients and current clients and I think that’s been a very, that demeanor that I have, it has its ripples with the rest of my team and out to the client base that we work with and I’m not just trying to grow a large client base though I am, I’m trying to grow a good client base and the type of energy you out is very much the type of energy that you bring in.

Stephen S. (21:50.643)
Yeah, because like, you know, just first first looking at you, you seem like you would be way less calm and collected as you are. when you’re talking, you speak with such confidence compared to this amazing, incredible, like flared look that you procure. And yeah, you’re just like cool, calm, collected. And I love the energy that you put off. Now, was that an exaggeration of a thousand punches or you literally throwing a thousand punches every

Attorney Blake Harris (22:20.59)
Well, so it’s maybe three or four days a week depending on my travel schedule. You’ve got an hour in there. I think some mornings I may hit a thousand, but Muay Thai is not just hands. You’ve got elbows, you’ve got knees, you’ve got kicks, kicks as well. I think the entire compilation, most classes we might get close to that number. I might be exaggerating a little bit on that.

Stephen S. (22:25.45)
Okay.

Stephen S. (22:48.715)
Okay, well either way still I was like doing kind of the math in my head. I’m like, I don’t know, that’s kind of realistic maybe depending on how long you’re doing it for. so what got you into that? Like how did you find Muay Thai and choose that as a martial art form?

Attorney Blake Harris (23:04.814)
Well, you know, I think that a lot of the things we do as adults are a reaction to things that went on in our childhood. And I was never a particularly big person as a child. And though I don’t think I got picked on a lot, I definitely felt like I was one of the smaller ones for portions of the childhood growing up. And then as I got old enough and had the time and

Stephen S. (23:15.104)
Hmm.

Attorney Blake Harris (23:34.006)
to go after this activity. I fell into it. I fell in with a great coach and a great team and it’s very much motivated me to keep going and as I do it, I mean I will say most days as I’m walking up to the gym I’m saying why am I going to get punched and kicked and come out of here with bruises but really there’s been nothing that’s elevated my self-respect and confidence like getting in there and talking about flow state. When you are faced with some

somebody who’s six foot two coming at you trying to knock you out. You’re not concerned about a client who’s upset. You’re not worried about is this person gonna get back to me. You’re not worried about anything else. You are there in the moment and it’s a really great experience when you can really get deep and focused into one thing, one activity and it feels good. I guess I like it because it feels good.

Stephen S. (24:22.603)
Mm.

Stephen S. (24:27.753)
You bet. So now, let me ask you this as we’re kinda coming up on our time here together. If you had to go back to the beginning, cause it sounds like this is almost like a life mission of yours. I mean, since kindergarten, right? You were like, how am I gonna protect my assets? I still, that’s such a great story. But if you had to go back to the beginning, going through law school, starting your practice, all that, and really like.

put yourself in those shoes again, but you had all the experience you currently have today. What would you do different and what would you do the same?

Attorney Blake Harris (25:05.292)
I would have bought Bitcoin. If I knew what I knew now 15 years ago, I wouldn’t have started the law practice. would have robbed anyone I could have bought Bitcoin. Okay, let’s edit that out and let me give a different answer. You know, Stephen, it’s hard to say. I mean, I can’t say that I would have done things different because you kind of have to make mistakes to learn from them. It’s hiring and firing. I’ve always…

Stephen S. (25:07.208)
yeah?

Stephen S. (25:19.124)
Really?

Attorney Blake Harris (25:34.092)
I believe I’ve always done a very good job of putting the client first and making sure everyone got a good client experience. And that has been really the key driving force behind my law firm. And that is something that I will say I’ve done well. And if I could go back in time, I’d say, do that, focus on the client experience. Don’t focus on the money. If you take care of the clients, the money will come. Beyond that, as far as mistakes I’ve learned from hire slow.

fire fast. If you don’t think it’s going to work out with somebody, you’ve got to be ready to take off that band-aid. Doing business requires having tough conversations. I would say that what has set me apart, and I do believe the law firm I’ve grown is much more successful than

Most of my law school classmates, don’t know how everyone’s doing, there’s no way to rank, but I’m confident that where my firm is, it’s well ahead of any other, probably ahead of any other peers of mine from law school. It hasn’t been intelligent though. I may be blessed with some level of intelligence. A lot of law students and attorneys are very smart and some much more brilliant than I am. It has been courage.

the courage to go after an area of law, is very hard to break into, which is hard to get clients in as opposed to a car accident or a divorce attorney and persistence. I started the law firm about over a decade ago. And during that time, there have been highs and there have been lows. And during the lows, you keep going.

Other than a week ago when I took a spiritual retreat down to Costa Rica, I had never taken a full day off of work. I took a week off last Thanksgiving. It was great for me to unplug and come back rejuvenated. But it’s the persistence. Speed is very important in business and a lot of the clients that I’ve gotten over the years, it’s probably because me and my team got back to them quicker than anyone else. So my advice is be courageous.

Attorney Blake Harris (27:36.65)
and do things that build up your courage, whether it’s Muay Thai, whether it’s keeping close relationships with other people. Finding mentors has been very important. And as I’ve gotten farther into my career, it’s become harder and sometimes even more expensive to access mentors. But seeking out the right people who you want to model yourself after and learn from is a very helpful step along the way. And then I also believe it’s very important that you have some degree of fun. If you have a job that you hate, you’re not going to work hard on it.

you don’t work hard at your job, you’re not going to be successful.

Stephen S. (28:10.091)
through that. Man, well, Attorney Blake Harris, thank you so much for being here with us today on the Real Estate Pros Podcast. If people want to connect with you for more, get a hold of you potentially, or even learn more about what you do with your law practice, where can they go to find you?

Attorney Blake Harris (28:27.786)
very easy, Blake Harris Law, blakeharasslaw.com on TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, X, Instagram, at Blake Harris Law.

Stephen S. (28:39.075)
Awesome sounds great and just remember he is the coolest attorney on social media So I’m sure there’s some some treats that we’re all in for once I go and check out those pages later, too I’m looking forward to it. Love it. Well Blake. Thank you so much for for being here today And thank you all for listening if it’s you know, your first time listening feel free and please make sure to Subscribe follow us for more and to learn more about investor fuel. You can go to invest fuel calm

Attorney Blake Harris (28:50.806)
I share a little bit of humor sometimes too.

Stephen S. (29:08.553)
Hope you enjoyed today’s show. We’ll see you on the next episode.