Complimentary Story
January 2025After speaking to and meeting with thousands of people regarding estate planning, a few main lessons stand out. First, wise Christians see estate planning as stewardship of their assets and are happy to invest the time and resources necessary into stewarding those assets well. Second, a vast majority of clients are surprised by how noninvasive the process is once it’s finished. And third, there are always a few individuals who will attempt to save a few dollars by preparing their own documents from online forms.
Regarding that third reality, it is understandable why people would seek a less intimidating and expensive option than a formal estate plan with an experienced attorney. Information from many corners suggests that it can be done at a fraction of the price and is just as good as the results you might get from an expert, and it alleviates the need to locate and entrust a new professional with your personal information and wishes.
Estate planning using online forms, however simple it might seem, is consequential legal work. And for the following three reasons, doing your own legal work is a shortsighted and dangerous idea.
1). Online Legal Work Is Unsupported
Anyone who has explored online legal form generation software knows that the very first page a user encounters is a waiver page. This page requires the user to read (or mindlessly scroll through, for most of us) a long document that accomplishes two primary objectives. First, it gets the user to acknowledge that, even though the forms it can generate look legal and official, it is not giving and is not legally allowed to give legal advice. As such, the user is using the software at his or her own risk. Second, and flowing from the first, the waiver page gets the user to waive any claims against the owner of the software if the generated paperwork doesn’t work at all, doesn’t work as advertised, or even works in a way that is completely contrary to the wishes of the user.
In other words, the owner of the software is denying any level of competency in creating and executing the forms it is selling to people and is prohibiting users from any recourse if the software messes up their lives or estates. That’s not exactly the level of support most users assume they are getting after ignoring the waiver page.
2). Online Legal Work Is Unprotected
The second primary problem with online legal document generation software is that it requires users to enter a significant amount of personal information to complete the documents. Names, addresses and contact information of not only the maker, but also of trusted friends and family are needed, so they are collected by the software to be included in the documents.
The problem with this collection is twofold. First, the legal software does not have the legal and ethical duty to protect that information since it is not an attorney (as it told people on the waiver page). As such, it does not need to do anything to protect or destroy the information as it comes in, or after the user’s documents are complete.
The second part of the problem is much worse. Many online form generators, especially those who work for “free,” make their income by selling the information of their customers to other companies so they can be targeted with ads of all kinds based on the personal information provided. In other words, free estate planning documents aren’t free, they come at the cost of private information people don’t know they are sharing.
3). Online Legal Work Is Uncounseled
The final concern with online legal document software is that it does not even try to provide counsel to users about what types of documents would be wise or appropriate in a given situation. Users utilize the software already having decided what kind of document they need, and the software mindlessly prepares it.
It is not at all uncommon for a client to come into my office requesting a certain document based on research or conversations with friends, only to have me advise them that a different approach would better address their situation and desires. There is no opportunity for this type of advice with a software that is not allowed or able to give legal advice, and that can lead to some very unintended and unfortunate results.
As the old saying goes about free or suspiciously discounted things, “you get what you pay for.” The same certainly applies to legal documents to a higher degree. In fact, the true costs of the mistakes or exposure created by these unsupported, unprotected and uncounseled documents might be far greater than one could imagine and are generally only discovered once it is too late to get them done right with an experienced professional.
McLario.com
