I recently had a person contact my firm with questions about drafting her own estate plan. She wanted to draft a will and described what she wanted the will to say, but told me she was having trouble “with the wording”. When I pressed her for more specifics, she couldn’t really explain what she was lacking, so I told her that the best thing to do would be to have an attorney draft the document for her. Without even discussing what it would cost for me to draft the will for her, she told me that it would be too expensive and the call ended before I had a chance to say much more.
If you’re thinking about drafting your own documents, I will first tell you that nothing in the law prevents you from doing this, i.e. legally you can do it. But the real question is should you draft your own documents? Absolutely not. Here’s why: Not only is it very complex to properly draft estate planning documents, it can be a complete and total disaster if you don’t do it correctly. And there’s a good chance that will happen.
I’ve written before that estate planning can be complex and somewhat expensive if you’re circumstances and assets are complex and large. But for most people, this is not the case, and estate planning is a reasonable expense. Have an attorney draft the documents and you’ll have peace of mind knowing they were handled by a professional and an expert.
Happy Mother’s Day!!!!
