It’s a legitimate question: Do I really need a lawyer to draft my estate plan? There are many DIY estate plan options out there, and lawyers charge a lot of money to put a will and trust together for a client. So why pay for an attorney if you can get a boiler-plate estate plan put together for a lower price?
There are some legitimate reasons to go the lawyer route. Here’s my response to this question:
- You get a custom plan tailored to your situation. A DIY estate plan will be very cookie-cutter, and there’s good odds that it will include things you don’t need, and leave out things you do. There may also be things you don’t realize need to be included, like details about your KDP account. With a lawyer, you can be assured that all the important things are covered and that this plan will be tailored to your specific needs.
- Your plan makes sense. I’ve read a number of DIY trusts, and I find most of them confusing, poorly organized, and in some cases self-contradictory. A lawyer-drafted trust will be much more coherent and easier to follow (at least for the experts, because legalese is still a thing).
- It’s less likely to be contested. An estate litigator once told me that most of his cases involved DIY trusts. When no lawyer oversees the process, unhappy beneficiaries are more likely to claim that the trust creators lacked capacity or had their arms twisted to make the plan.
- It’s more likely to be upheld. If an estate plan does get litigated, the court will ask the drafting attorney to speak about the drafting process and their opinion on the trust creator’s mental state. The drafting attorney’s opinion is given a lot of weight, so their testimony can be very helpful in this situation.
Given the above, I feel it makes more sense to use a lawyer. But of course, I’m biased, and there are some people who can get by just fine with DIY estate plans. (If you figure out who they are, please let me know.)
If you have questions or would like to discuss your estate plan (DIY or otherwise) with a lawyer, please feel free to contact me at kaway@kawaylaw.com.
