On Aug 9, 7:47 am, Stan Brown <the_stan_br...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>
> If you can follow directions meticulously, you can
> write your own will. I would still have a lawyer look at it, but
> having a lawyer review a will will probably cost you considerably
> less than having her draft one.
Maybe, but not necessarily. I suspect the client will usually get a better deal with a simple will by going with whatever language the lawyer already has prepared for such cases.
If as you say a lawyer is willing to prepare a simple will as a loss leader, frex for $50 or less, that will be because he or she has already drafted and researched the effect and validity of the language that the lawyer uses, and is amortizing that R&D cost (and eventually making a small profit) by spreading it over volume instead of charging it to just one client. Frex, if it took 10 hours of work by the lawyer at a nominal $100 per hour to get just the right language researched and drafted, each of the many clients who come in and ask for a simple will (where the only thing that needs to be changed is the names of the beneficiaries, and perhaps there are some optional clauses that the lawyer has already drafted and can just plug in by selecting them from his archive with his document assembly software) is basically getting what would otherwise be a $1000 custom-drafted will for $50, because all they need is an "off-the-rack, ready-to-wear" product so to speak. In fact, that $50 barely covers the half-hour or so the lawyer will usually spend meeting with the client to ascertain her needs and make sure the client has thought through other legal implications (e.g. whether the client wants distribution to remote descendants to be per capita or per stirpes, whether or not to waive bond for the executor, whether to also set up some kind of probate-avoidance method such as a living trust or joint account, and so forth). The client is basically getting the previously-done will-drafting effort itself, for free along with all this discussion time.
Now, if a client comes in and wants the lawyer to review someone _else's_ language to see if it does what the client wants it to, and is otherwise valid and enforceable, the lawyer can't just check off and select her own pre-researched language that she has already vetted for its meaning and validity to easily assemble a will tailored to the client's needs. The lawyer will instead have to at least spend enough time actually reading the "outsourced" will to make sure she knows all the nuances of what it says, and may have to hit the books to check out whether any court has ever ruled on the meaning of a turn of phrase she is not familiar with. That time and effort will of course be less than is needed to actually draft a custom-made will, but is very likely to be more than it would take the lawyer to just offer one of her own ready-made choices. If it takes more than half an hour to do all that additional review and research, in the above hypothetical example, the lawyer ought to charge more for document review than for a standard will already drafted by that lawyer. And if it turns out there _is_ something deficient about the language the client selected to use, the lawyer will then have to take the time to draft an alternative clause _and_ take the time to explain to the client why the old language was bad and the new language was needed.
There are shortcuts, and there are do-it-yourself projects, but let's be sensible. Much of what we lawyers wind up having to do for our daily bread is cleaning up the messes that other people have already made for themselves by trying to do something "the easy way" after that didn't work. IMO it's much better and quite often cheaper to get a professional involved at an early stage to do it right the first time, whether we're talking about plumbing, car repair, or will drafting. Unless you really enjoy the process as a hobby and _want_ to spend a lot of time doing it (the original meaning of "amateur" of course being someone who pursues some activity for the pure love of the game), the pro can generally do it faster and with better results.
--
This posting is for discussion purposes, not professional advice.
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Mike Jacobs
LAW OFFICE OF W. MICHAEL JACOBS
10440 Little Patuxent Pkwy #300
Columbia, MD 21044
(tel) 410-740-5685 (fax) 410-740-4300
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