Estate Planning Built for Real Families: How Dogwood Wealth Management Scaled Personalized Estate Planning with Vanilla

The Challenge

Dogwood initially adopted Vanilla to streamline annual estate reviews—converting dense, 40+ page legal documents into client-friendly visuals. But as they grew, they needed more than just a visualizer. After briefly using both Vanilla and a similar product for document generation, it became clear that the other platform’s abstraction tool fell short. 

“It felt like we were still doing all the work—reading, interpreting, feeding in data. It defeated the purpose of efficiency,” said Jason Newcomer, Partner at Dogwood. Meanwhile, client needs were evolving, especially around joint revocable trusts in non-community property states—something Vanilla didn’t support at the time.

The Solution

Vanilla didn’t just meet Dogwood where they were—it moved with them. When Dogwood raised the need for joint revocable trusts in non-community property states, Vanilla responded quickly, rolling out support that helped Dogwood maintain continuity and client satisfaction. Around the same time, Vanilla’s document generation tools matured—and Dogwood fully transitioned off the other platform, finding that Vanilla’s output was far more client-ready and intuitive.

The firm signed a multi-year contract with Vanilla, reflecting their confidence in the platform’s future and commitment to consistency amid pricing evolution. Today, Dogwood leans heavily on Vanilla for document abstraction, document creation, and insights and proactive planning, which is accelerated with integrations including eMoney. More than 75% of their clients are now onboarded into Vanilla’s portal.

Breakthrough Moment

Three years ago, a longtime Dogwood client was diagnosed with a terminal illness. Jason and his colleague Eric used Vanilla to generate a full estate report in time for a critical family meeting. They sat in a boardroom with the client, her trustee, and all five adult children to walk through the entire plan. That single meeting led to three of the five children—and even a grandchild—becoming clients. 

“Vanilla was at the center of that conversation. It made a deeply emotional process tangible and actionable,” said Jason.

Real Results for Real Families

Vanilla has helped Dogwood translate legal complexity into conversations that drive clarity and connection. Clients have embraced the visual reports, often requesting copies to share with family. Dogwood’s advisors now rely on Vanilla not just for client estates, but even when supporting outside plans created by other attorneys—using Vanilla’s tools instead of outdated PowerPoint diagrams.

The team at Dogwood sees Vanilla as an essential part of their estate planning ecosystem. From onboarding new clients to updating existing ones, and even encouraging next-gen planning, Vanilla sits at the core of how Dogwood serves families.

To learn more about how Dogwood makes estate planning a key part of its offering and creates efficiencies using technology, watch the on-demand webinar here.