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Yes, absolutely! My friend Camila Medici is an attorney and she highly recommends David Wechsler, of Morrit Hock law firm in Garden City. Their website is Moritt Hock Hamroff & Horowitz LLP - a Long Island law firm with over 30 attorneys and paralegals providing counsel to clients in litigation, bankruptcy and other legal matters and their number is (516) 873-2000. David's extension is 293, and his direct email is dwechsler@moritthock.com. She says that you will feel like you are their only client, despite the fact that they are a busy firm with famous clientele. I am not sure what they charge, but I would mention her name and see what happens. Sometimes it's helpful to have a person in common. They are known for being knowleadgeble, friendly and detail oriented. When you visit the site you will see that David is a leader in the field of wills, trusts and estates.
Go to legalzoom.com. Drafting wills is a boilerplate operation (meaning they take a generic will and have their secretary fill in the blanks). Only exception would be if you two are multi-millionaires who own more than just a home, but several, or who own businesses or want to itemize your bequests (to my son, I leave my antique grandfather clock, etc.) or want to create trust funds, etc. You get the picture. If you are just average people, paying an attorney much more money to do the same thing that legalzoom.com can do makes absolutely no sense.
THATS WHAT YOU WOULD THINK...our refinance was halted by the title company on an inherited house because the canned form said "and to my child beth i leave my house"
it was missing one word, the word "only" as in only child...
i had to pay THE CO-OP LAWYER , THE BANK LAWYER , the title company for the day , and lost my rate..
we had to get affidavits signed by relatives that she was an only child .
i can write a book with will snafus we hit .......
how about ny state has certain questions that are asked at the signing of a will in front of witnesses , not law but accepted good practice.
questions like do you know what a will is? are you on medication or drugs? are you under pressure to do this? etc....
one thing i learned about wills is nothing is a problem until its a problem
Last edited by mathjak107; 11-17-2009 at 09:25 AM..
THATS WHAT YOU WOULD THINK...our refinance was halted by the title company on an inherited house because the canned form said "and to my child beth i leave my house"
it was missing one word, the word "only" as in only child...
i had to pay THE CO-OP LAWYER , THE BANK LAWYER , the title company for the day , and lost my rate..
we had to get affidavits signed by relatives that she was an only child .
i can write a book with will snafus we hit .......
how about ny state has certain questions that are asked at the signing of a will in front of witnesses , not law but accepted good practice.
questions like do you know what a will is? are you on medication or drugs? are you under pressure to do this? etc....
one thing i learned about wills is nothing is a problem until its a problem
A lot of lawyers use the "canned forms" instead of actually creating customized wills for people and charge much more than legalzoom.com does for doing essentially the same thing.
Do you think most of them (or the secretaries who actually type what's in the boilerplate will) would have caught the lack of the word ONLY that caused your headaches?
I like a lot of the advice you give in general, so please give us tips on HOW to choose a competent lawyer for wills and estates instead of just paying more for the boilerplated form than what you pay to legalzoom.com.
It just seems that many attorneys who do simple processes over and over again (simple wills, simple bankruptcies, simple real estate transactions, fill out immigration forms, etc.) just retype the same forms with different names and details on them and charge the customer as if they had actually done anything rather than "search and replace" word processing fields.
You are correct, i would never use a general practice attorney for a will or trust.. if you stick to the specialists in estate planning odds are they are very well versed in what needs to be done.... of course like everything you need to find the good ones.
ill give you another example of what happens when a specialist isnt used..
grandpa specifically wrote out of his trust and will some grand children from my wifes first marriage. well after grandpa died everything went to grandma . however before grandma died my wifes 1st husband died.
well because a general practioner contructed everything he left out a sentance for what should happen if there is any predeceasing ... since my wifes husband predeceased his mom it created an awful mess...
that missing sentance cost us 400,000.00 in buyout fees in a family business where those step children ended up entitled to a share in the business after all despite grandpas wishes plus another 100,000 in legal fee's...
always go for the best in wills and trusts no matter what you think you have, screw ups cant be fixed...
as the judge said he knows what grandpas intentions are but he said he cant add words or fix defects in a will and re-write history .
dont assume because you dont have much you dont need a pro.....
a wrongful death settlement , an accident, a mal-practice claim can all introduce money unexpectedly into the mix.
THATS WHAT YOU WOULD THINK...our refinance was halted by the title company on an inherited house because the canned form said "and to my child beth i leave my house"
it was missing one word, the word "only" as in only child...
i had to pay THE CO-OP LAWYER , THE BANK LAWYER , the title company for the day , and lost my rate..
we had to get affidavits signed by relatives that she was an only child .
i can write a book with will snafus we hit .......
how about ny state has certain questions that are asked at the signing of a will in front of witnesses , not law but accepted good practice.
questions like do you know what a will is? are you on medication or drugs? are you under pressure to do this? etc....
one thing i learned about wills is nothing is a problem until its a problem
thankfully we found out about the defect when we refinanced, by the time we sold the house years later all her aunts were gone.... that would have been a real mess trying to get affadavitts from dead people.....
This is all very interesting. I handle a great deal of refinance legal work, and I do see many instances where estate issues halt the process. My practice also consists of some estate planning, and I have to say that I doubt that many attorneys just use forms from Legal Zoom. They may use paralegals to do most of the work, but I do believe (or hope) that most don't let a final product leave their hand without some research and review themselves. I will admit that I went to the State Bar Association for some forms, asset checklists, and affidavits when I first started drafting wills and trusts. However, I always did the research and communicated with my clients as to the possibilities relating to various options and configurations for their estate plan. I do think legal zoom is risky, because they it can never advise you as to the little rules, (e.g., "Acts of Independent Significance"), and certain state rules will mandate that the court construe language a certain way (and it might be against your intent).
What is the cost difference between using a special trust lawyer and a generic lawyer for your will?
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