Do You Need A Lawyer To Do Your Will?

No.

Maybe that’s a surprising answer coming from a lawyer. Whether it’s a good idea warrants a different response, however.

Sample Wills are readily available on the internet. But are they right for your circumstances? Do you have minor children or “special needs” offspring? Do you want to leave something to a niece or nephew? A so-called “simple will” would be a bad idea in each case.

A skilled lawyer’s most important role is not to prepare generic legal documents. Rather, it is to draft the right language for papers that are customized to your particular situation.

There’s another good reason to have a professional prepare your legal documents that’s usually not discussed, even by attorneys. Nobody’s perfect, of course. But if the lawyer messes up, your heirs can go against legal malpractice insurance (almost all of us have it). If the do-it-yourselfer” does it wrong, his family is out of luck.