It’s March 2026 and we are revisiting some oldie but goodie posts. Here’s one with some refreshments. Enjoy!
Do you really need to pay a lawyer to create an estate plan?
Pros of doing it yourself are that it can be fast and it is cheap.
Cons are that you’ll probably mess it up.
Occasionally people ask about creating a Will or Trust without an attorney. The answer is, it depends.
A person can handwrite a will without an attorney and I’m sure there are even YouTube videos on how to do it. In fact, in Canada, following a horrible accident, a farmer scratched his Last Will into a tractor fender and it was enough to pass on his estate.
However, just like cutting your own hair, just because you can does not mean you should. Sure, it works out great for some but is embarrassing for most of us.
In estate planning, there are a lot of moving parts. First, there is more to an estate plan than a Will. For example, there are powers of attorney, guardianship, and custodianship considerations, among other things. Each of these comes with decisions and strategies to consider.
Not only that, even the law governing simple Wills is not that simple. Case in point, England’s gift to American probate law, the Rule Against Perpetuities. Put simply, this prohibits a trust from lasting forever and ever, well, into perpetuity. It dates back to the 1680s and confounds even experienced lawyers so often that the California Supreme Court ruled in Lucas v. Hamm, 56 Cal.2d 583 that it is not malpractice if a California attorney misinterprets it!
Let that sink in . . . Professionals with years of education and years of work experience struggle to comprehend the nuances of a law. But not you . . . you’ll whip it up with a quick ChatGPT query. Not likely.
You may think that since I am an estate planning lawyer, it’s in my best interest to tell you to get a lawyer to draft your estate plan. And that would be true. But, I have also represented trustees tasked with administering DIY Trusts and I can say that DIY Trusts are very good for business. This is because regular folks, and even sometimes lawyers who dabble in estate planning, make lots of mistakes. Don’t notice the gaps they leave and the inconsistencies and ambiguities they create. Resolving these when the DIY-er is no longer around can be a profitable undertaking.
Botched, incomplete or invalid wills usually turn up in the lawyer’s office after it’s too late and the drafter has died. The children and heirs end up paying much more than the cost of preparing a plan. In addition to attorney’s fees, they pay with their time, emotional and mental frustration, and, sometimes, ruined family relationships.
A task force assembled by the American Bar Association issued a statement on whether people should attempt doing their own estate plan. Their answer is that it might be okay in some circumstances but that it’s probably not a good idea. You can read the ABA article here.
To find out how I can help your with your estate plan, contact me here or call me at 650.636.7247.
Law Office of Christina Gorokhovsky 