Maria Pippidis, University of Delaware
Megan O'Neil-Haight, University of Maryland
Crystal A. Terhune, University of Maryland
Choosing Your Will and Estate Planning Attorney
Why Do I Need Legal Advice for Wills and Estates?
Do-it-yourself “legal” documents and estate planning software can be found in office supply superstores and
scores of web sites. Some publications and advertisements lead a person to believe that they can handle all their
estate planning needs either by themselves or with just one phone call, plus a hefty fee to a slick attorney operat-
ing from the internet. This causes us to question whether we really need an attorney to order our affairs.
Estate planning is the process of choosing among alternatives to ensure financial security during your life and
to arrange for the well-being of heirs upon your death. To plan your estate yourself, you will need to study the
law to such a degree that all documents articulate your end-of- life wishes in a way that is legally valid in your
state(s), and also minimize heirs’ tax implications. If you have property in more than one state, and since differ-
ent states may have different laws, your estate planning documents need to take the other states’ laws into ac-
count. Keep in mind, as laws change, you will have to keep your documents up to date with any changes in the
laws. This is not an easy task. In the final analysis, doing it yourself will keep you busy and may leave you not
knowing for certain whether you have solved the end-of-life issues that you wish to address.
There are good reasons to get personal advice from a trusted and qualified attorney to prepare for the inevitable.
A common misconception is that only the wealthy have complicated enough situations to require an attorney to
draw up wills, trusts, and guardianship and health care directives. The fact is that estate planning is necessary for
all people and that even relatively simple estate