Finding the right attorney to plan your estate can be a significant challenge. Choosing an estate planning attorney may be your first contact that you will ever have with an attorney. What qualities should you look for in an estate planning attorney?
Do not accept on faith that any attorney who says that he/she can do estate planning is competent to plan your estate. Such confidence is frequently misplaced because many attorneys have little training or actual experience in this complex area of the law.
You may be tempted to shop for price rather than quality in legal services. When it comes to obtaining quality estate planning services as it is with most of the areas of life, you get what you pay for. Your selection should be made with care and should be based on much more than just the cost.
When your interviewing an estate planning attorney, interview only attorneys whose practices are dedicated to planning estates. Other attorneys just simply do not have the knowledge or experience to plan your estate properly. Planning an estate is the equivalent of legal heart surgery. You don’t go to a family doctor for heart surgery, why would you go to a general practitioner for estate planning services?
Finally, there are questions to ask your prospective estate planning attorney:
1. Please tell me about your interest, background and experience in the estate planning field.
2. What percentage of your practice is in estate planning?
3. Do you offer comprehensive estate planning services including preparation of trusts and consultations regarding Medicare and Medicaid?
4. Will you help avoid the additional cost, delays, loss of privacy and other problems of probate or do you earn your living by probating estates at the surviving families expense?
5. How do you make sure that my assets are controlled by my instructions that are contained in my planning documents?
6. How do you charge for your services, not only for the preparation of the estate plan, but the cost to administer my plan upon my disability and upon my death?
7. How do you stay current with the laws and with the changes in the estate planning field?
8. What should I do to prepare for our consultation? Do you expect any “homework” from me?
9. How often should my estate plan be reviewed and updated?
10. What type of service should I expect from you?
Estate planning involves reviewing and analyzing your desires and finances today to insure that you and your family are prepared for tomorrow. It requires that you have a team of qualified professionals that will work together to make sure you receive an integrated estate plan of the highest quality. You deserve the best estate planning services possible. Your estate planning attorney should have the training and experience to turn your estate planning desires into reality.
By: Matthew M. Wallace, CPA JD
Published edited May 17, 2009 in The Times Herald newspaper, Port Huron, Michigan as: Picking estate attorney complex