Do You Need An Attorney to Prepare an Estate Plan?

Why do you need an estate plan in the first place?

Until technology advances to the point where nobody ever dies or becomes incapacitated, estate planning is something everyone needs to do. In fact, everyone has an estate plan, it’s just a matter of whether they put it together themselves (with or without the help of an attorney) or they’re fine accepting whatever is imposed upon them by state and federal law and the court system.

Do you want your financial affairs overseen by a court-appointed attorney you never met? I doubt it. So as not to leave these important matters and decisions to chance, everyone should put their own estate plan together.

But do you need an attorney to prepare your estate plan?

So yes, you need a plan, but is it really necessary to work with an attorney? Good question. As experienced estate planning attorneys, we might be a bit biased here, but we’ll be open and honest with you, too. Much of the actual document preparation process is very simple and highly repetitive. Our value, and the value of any good attorney, is not in being form jockeys, but in asking the right questions, making the appropriate recommendations, making sure clients are informed as to what they’re doing and why, and fine-tuning the forms that we use. We have decades of experience helping thousands of clients, and we’re still learning something new every day that changes even the subtlest of ways in which we advise clients.

Lots of times, after we ask the right questions and make sure that a situation is truly as straightforward as a client believes (which we can typically determine within 15-20 minutes), the planning is quite simple. We make sure our fees and the documents we prepare reflect that simplicity.

That all makes sense, but can you explain it again using an analogy?

Yes! Asking whether you need an attorney to prepare an estate plan is like asking whether you need to see a doctor for that bump on your neck.

A good doctor will evaluate you quickly and shoot you straight. If it’s a lymph node, or even your Adam’s apple and you just happen to be terrible at anatomy, the doctor will be able to tell you, charge you a minimal amount for a visit (or should be able to), and then send you on your merry way with renewed peace of mind and a sense that everything is ok. However, if it’s something serious, the doctor will be able to help you, and, yes, the medical costs might be higher in those instances, but it’s a heck of a lot better than what the outcome would have been had you not gone to the doctor.

If you never see the doctor and rely on the diagnosis you made after scanning WebMD, how much peace of mind do you have? And if you stumble upon some advice saying you ought to drink 100 ounces of ultra-organic apple cider vinegar every morning for the next month to help you get rid of that bump, which just so happens to be your Adam’s apple, you’re going to spend a lot of money and create a host of new issues, all of which could have been prevented with basic, real medical advice.

At the end of the day, what we and any good estate planning attorney will do is treat every single client situation with the respect and attention it deserves. When a client’s needs are simple, fees should be low and the planning should be simple. As the complexity grows, the fees might go up, but the benefits of the planning should far outweigh those costs.

If you have any questions about your situation or want to learn more about our approach and our services, please reach out. We’d be happy to chat with you.