Why Use an Attorney?

Have you recently received an advertisement from an "estate planning" company? The company may have "estate planning" or "legacy planning" in their business name. Be careful! The company may be a legal document preparer and not an attorney.

Arizona’s Legal Document Preparer Program certifies individuals or entities to provide document preparation assistance. These are not attorneys. A certified legal document preparer (LDP) may provide legal documents, but "may not provide any kind of specific advice, opinion, or recommendation to a person about possible legal rights, remedies, defenses, options, or strategies" (See ARIZONA CODE OF JUDICIAL ADMINISTRATION). A LDP may not offer advice on your estate planning based on your individual circumstances. Often, an LDP advertising reduced trust prices is also a financial planner. Offering the reduced trust prices allows them to advertise their financial products. Financial products are significantly more profitable, and offering a trust is a way to draw people into the LDP’s office or seminars. 

So why use an attorney? Frequently, attorneys are contacted by clients that only want a “simple will” or “simple trust.” Your estate plan may be more complex or may be even simpler than you initially think. Attorneys are looking at a myriad of factors when drafting your estate planning documents, including family dynamics, whether beneficiaries are receiving means-based government benefits, your long-term care needs, types of assets, and your ultimate goals. Attorneys focus on your legal needs; LDPs are often focused on selling financial products. Attorneys can plan for the future and significantly minimize the risk of any issues in the future. What is extremely costly is when something happens when you pass away or become incapacitated that could have been avoided with careful estate planning, but which now requires thousands of dollars in attorneys fees to address. 

I always encourage everyone to complete their estate planning, but it’s only as good as the documents that are executed. A generic trust churned out by a LDP may cost less money, but result in an outcome that you did not foresee or end up costing thousands of dollars to rectify. It is extremely concerning to hear the number of my clients who believed that the LDP was an attorney. Please ask questions and be informed so that you do not spend money on estate planning documents that do not address your needs or goals. 

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