There is no legal requirement that you create your last will or revocable living trust with an attorney. But doing it yourself is not for everyone. In this article, we'll review:
- Who should consider creating their estate plan with an attorney
- The secrets behind many attorney-prepared estate plans
- What to look for in an estate planning attorney
- How much creating an estate plan with an attorney costs
- Alternatives to creating your estate plan with an attorney
Who Should Consider Creating Their Estate Plan With an Attorney
Many people are surprised to learn that you do not need a lawyer to create a last will or revocable trust, because there's a lot of fear-mongering marketing out there suggesting that only someone who went to law school can draft estate planning documents.
That's simply not true.
Regardless of your legal or financial background, you can create your own legally valid, state-specific last will or revocable living trust without an attorney, whether that be by yourself or with the help of online estate planning software.
The do-it-yourself or technology-assisted route is not for everyone, however. If you fall into one or more of the following groups, you may benefit from the assistance of an estate planning attorney licensed in your state:
- You are uncomfortable using a phone or a computer for everyday tasks
- Your assets are valued higher than the federal estate tax threshold ($13.6 million in 2024 for individuals and $27.2 million for married couples)
- You want help implementing advanced estate tax minimization strategies to avoid federal or state estate taxes (if you live in one of the 17 states with state estate tax)
- You are creating a special needs trust (SNT) to provide for a person with disabilities and preserve government benefits like medicaid and social security income
- You have an unusually complex asset ownership structure
- You own or operate a business and want help or have legal questions about business continuity planning
- You have a blended family and want extra assistance structuring gifts
- You want highly personalized estate planning legal advice
In these situations, consulting with an experienced estate planning attorney can provide extra assurance that your plan aligns with your intentions.
On the estate tax and government benefit eligibility side, several of the common estate planning strategies involve taking assets out of your name and beyond your control in one or more irrevocable trusts. While the strategies themselves are not necessarily complicated, the irreversibility of these measures and value at stake make getting another pair of trained eyes all the more valuable.
In families blended from multiple marriages, you'll want to be careful on how you structure gifts to your spouse vs. gifts to your children. Reflexively giving everything to your spouse in what is colloquially known as an "I love you will" may not provide for children from previous marriages, since all your assets will then be controlled by your spouse's plan or desires. Naming your beneficiaries individually and spreading out gifts among your spouse and adult children straight away is an easy way around this.
The Secrets Behind Many Attorney-Created Estate Plans
If you were surprised to learn that you don't need an attorney to create an estate plan, you may be even more surprised by these two secrets behind many attorney-created estate plans.
Secret #1 - Your Attorney-Created Plan Came from a Template
When you create your estate plan with an attorney, your attorney will almost certainly use one of several standard templates to prepare your documents.
Either the attorney has her own starter template developed and maintained by her law firm, or the attorney is using a template from Wealth Counsel, Interactive Legal, or a similar legal document drafting software for attorneys. During or after your meeting with the attorney, the attorney or a paralegal will input your information into the template to create your documents.
There is nothing inherently wrong with using a starter template. Starter templates save a significant amount of time, which helps keep the cost of creating an estate plan with an attorney more affordable, and they also reduce the risk of drafting errors.
Nonetheless, understanding that your attorney-created estate plan documents are largely template-based demystifies the process. Before you pay a premium to have an attorney or paralegal input your information into document drafting software, you may be interested in trying it yourself.
Secret #2 - Your Attorney Isn't Making that Much Money from Your Drafting Your Documents
While spending $500 - $1,500+ for an attorney-prepared last will or a few thousand dollars for a revocable living trust can feel like a lot of money to part with, the reality is that the attorney is probably not making very much money on drafting your estate plan documents relative to what she may be earning in other practice areas.
Pricing out estate planning document drafting is a little bit like milk at the supermarket. The attorney wants to keep price low to draw in clients for higher spending items.
Many people mistakenly believe that the cost of an estate plan is all in the creation of the will or trust document. In reality, the bulk of the cost -- particularly for will-based estate plans -- is in estate administration, or what happens after the will- or trust-maker passes away.
While an attorney may charge a flat fee or only a few hours for creating a will, that same attorney will charge a percentage of the estate or tens of billable hours to help administer the estate.
Take an estate with $150,000 of probate assets in California, for example. Attorney fees here are dictated by state statute as a percentage of the probate estate. Whereas an attorney may have earned $500-$1,500 drafting the underlying will, if she handles the probate administration, she may earn $5,500 -- anywhere from 3.5x to 11x more than the document drafting.
What to Look for in an Estate Planning Attorney
If you want to create your estate plan with an attorney because you have specialized needs, you will want to engage a specialist.
Many local attorneys who offer estate planning services are generalists operating in a number of different fields such as family law, bankruptcy protection, civil litigation and disputes, and other areas.
The first local attorney who pops up on Google search may seem like the most convenient offline option, but that attorney might not be best equipped to address your unique needs.
When you learn the secrets to how attorney-prepared estate plans are priced, you learn that your estate plan probably came from attorney-side drafting software or another template.
There is nothing inherently wrong with an attorney being a generalist or using a template. As your needs become increasingly specialized and you integrate advanced tax planning, however, the checkboxes that feed those templates start to become fairly complicated, even for an attorney. Unless the attorney really knows what he or she is doing, the attorney could unknowingly or accidentally check the wrong box and create a plan that isn’t what you want.
Specialists who draft and administer estate plans day-in and day-out are far less likely to make one of these drafting mistakes. Many hold a ‘Master of Laws’ (LLM) in Taxation, a special tax planning credential for lawyers that requires an additional 18 to 36 months of legal education and field practice beyond a J.D. Others focus heavily on special needs planning and preserving government entitlements for clients with disabilities or extensive medical care needs. This extra knowledge and focus is critical as you seek to create and manage a complex estate plan.
Beyond ensuring that you're working with a specialist, you'll also want an attorney who fits the following criteria:
- Licensed in your state: Licenses to practice law are state-specific, and most attorneys only are licensed in one or a handful of states.
- Cost structure that meets your budget: ask whether the attorney charges a fixed fee or hourly rate. If you are paying by the hour, try to get a sense from the attorney on total estimated hours to meet your needs or a price range that the attorney's services typically fall into.
- Age and Continuity of Law Practice: If you plan to have your attorney retain custody of the original copy of your will, you'll want to have some assurance that the attorney's law practice will be around when you pass away.
- Availability: the best estate planning attorney specialists are in high demand. Many are unable to schedule new client visits until multiple months out. Make sure that the attorney's availability fits with your timeline for creating your plan.
Armed with the knowledge for what to look for in an estate planning attorney, you’re ready to find an estate planning attorney and prepare for your first meeting.
How Much Does Making a Will or Trust with an Estate Planning Attorney Cost?
A well drafted will prepared by an attorney generally costs between $500 to $1,500+. A revocable living trust typically runs from $1,000 to several thousand dollars or more. Variance within this range depends on three factors:
- the prevailing rates within the local market
- whether the attorney charges a flat fee or fixed rate
- the complexity of your estate
Prevailing Rates
The cost for a will prepared by an attorney in New York City tends to be more expensive than one prepared by an attorney in Rochester. Law firms competing in denser, urban areas tend to carry higher rent, wages, and other operating costs, and those higher operating costs are reflected in the ultimate price paid by the client.
Since laws governing the creation of wills are at the state level, one way to lower your cost of creating a will with an attorney may be to find a competent estate planning attorney whose legal practice is in a lower density part of your state. In the post COVID ‘Zoom’ era, many legal practices offer online meetings and consultations that can better accommodate working with out-of-town clients. If you do decide to go this route, be aware that some attorneys may still prefer that you travel onsite to their office for the signing ceremony executing your will.
Hourly vs. Fixed Fee
Hourly rates for attorneys can vary from $150 to $500+ / hour depending on the experience of the attorney and the local market.
If you plan to create your estate plan with an estate planning attorney on an hourly basis, make sure that you have a sense for the meeting cadence. In most cases, these meetings and other billable hours for creating an estate plan run anywhere from 1 to 5+ hours. Where you fall in that range depends on the style of the attorney and how prepared you are going into the meetings.
Many attorneys charge clients a fixed fee for preparing their estate plan. The fixed fee offers pricing certainty and may even improve the quality of the resulting estate plan as the client tends to be less concerned with “managing the clock,” rushing through creating the estate plan to control billable hours.
Complexity of the Estate
A simple last will or revocable living trust costs less than a more involved one, and preparing an estate plan for one individual costs less than preparing two plans for a couple.
What makes for a simple or complex estate?
The "estate" encompasses your assets, debts, family structure, and gift plans. As any of these underlying components gets more complicated, the estate grows more complex.
For example, if you have a lot of assets with specialized beneficiary or survivorship provisions, your attorney will need to read through those ancillary documents to make sure the assets pass in accordance with your wishes.
That being said, one reason why attorneys can price wills or revocable living trusts as a fixed fee is because the vast majority of estates are really not all that complicated.
Alternatives to Creating Your Estate Plan with an Attorney
You can create your state-specific, legally valid last will or revocable living trust by yourself or with the help of online estate planning software like JIC Estates.
Paying less than the cost of meeting with an attorney doesn't mean getting less.
In addition to support throughout the document creation process and the ability to edit your docs at any time, you'll get the benefit of our rich, dynamic estate planning visualizations, line-by-line video tutorials, and vast resource library to help you truly understand your documents and how your plan works.
If you're ready to get started, you can sign up for an account and complete your plan in as little as 15 minutes.
