Paying your Attorney
How much is legal advice worth? Are you paying too much? Are you paying enough?
When you decide how much to pay an attorney, you need to consider the value of the service provided. Estate planning clients should ask themselves:
- How important is it that I obtain a plan that works?
- Do I want an attorney that does not focus on estate planning?
- Do I want to meet with the attorney and have all my questions answered?
With discounted estate planning you are only paying for executed documents. However, the documents are only part of what makes an estate plan successful. You can't afford to go to the cheapest estate planning lawyer or a non-lawyer, because far to often the estate plan fails. It eventually costs more to fix the problem than going to an appropriate attorney in the first place.
In my exeperience, buying documents is like buying a college diploma without learning. Sure, the diploma is an important document. But, the value is in the education. With a discount attorney, you are prone to losing the important education that should accompany your documents.
Estate planning laws are increasingly complex because of divorce, remarriage, IRA and retirement accounts, mobility of couples between multiple states, and changing laws. Consequently, you should expect two things from your estate planning attorney. If you do not get them, then your plan has a significantly higher chance of failure.
- The attorney should educate you about your situation and your plan. I find that it takes at least three or five hours over a series of appointments (initial meeting, signing meeting, and document delivery) to educate my clients. You will ultimately do something that affects your estate plan and you need to know how to handle it.
- The attorney should focus on estate planning. Estate planning is a complex area of law. If your attorney doesn't have the specialized knowledge necessary, then that attorney will not be able to educate you. Law is to specialized for an attorney to practice as a jack of all trades but master of none. Focus is important.
The adage is true: you get what you pay for. So, if it is important to you that your estate plan works, then choose an attorney who is committed to making that happen. In my own experience, it takes time and a relationship with my clients to develop a working plan.
