I keep hearing from people what a great “deal” a certain internet website is. You just log on, type your information, and you can instantly get wills, trusts, corporations, trademarks, etc, just as good as one prepared by an Estate Planning or other Attorney for a lot less money. As I posted before, I believe that this is impossible. No computerized website can ever give you the personal and customized attention that an Estate Planning Attorney can. It does not know how to ask the right questions and come up with the right solutions based upon your individual circumstances.
“But”, someone will say, “You’ve never ever seen a document from them. For all you know, they’re perfect.”
Fair enough.
So I decided to see for myself. I went to this site, signed up, and ordered a revocable living trust. I even paid for it. I answered the questions, went through the whole process and filled out the information as if I were a client (of course, I didn’t use any real attorney client information). Over the coming days, I will write about my experience in using the site, signing up, answering the questions, and the documents that I receive.
When the document arrives in the mail, I will read it and post my thoughts about it. I’m going in with a skeptical mind and am biased, but I’m prepared to be swayed. I actually hope I’m wrong because it bothers me greatly that there are so many people out there who have “peace of mind” in the belief that they’ve done their estate planning, and have what may be faulty documents.
In my coming reviews, whenever I profoundly disapprove of something that the site is doing, I will indicate it to you by invoking something my Grandmother always says:
Oy.
Be prepared, there are a lot of Oys coming, regarding just using the site, and I don’t even have the documents yet.
[Note: While I’m sure you can figure out who it is, I purposely didn’t mention the site at this time. I don’t want to influence the experiment.]