That’s the problem I have with them. We have a practice that’s largely estate planning and probate. I’ve had 10 internet-prepared wills brought in for probate, and 9 of them were legally insufficient; i.e., didn’t comply with some combination of Texas Estates (fmrly Probate) Code requirements, didn’t dispose of the estate the way it was told to me the testator wanted it disposed of, or were so full of pseudolegal gobbledygook that they looked like pleadings filed by a Republic of Texas sovereign citizen.
What happens in those cases is that the will is invalid and the property is disposed of according to the laws of descent and distribution, which is very often not what the testator intended.
I haven’t gone into my time on the local subcommittee of the Unauthorized Practice of Law Committee, but there’s always at least one Legalzoom case on the list.
You should offer to help them make a Texas valid will. You make money for consultation, they make money for offering solid services and fewer people find their estates in probate. The free market, ain't it great!
That is my problem with services such as Legalzoom or “prepaid legal svces”
IANAL, but I have worked as a paralegal and was fairly involved in 2 lawsuits I brought. (And lost both)
You are exactly correct, though you are sort of playing down the downside. It can be absolutely catastrophic.
Amateurs/laymen do not know what questions to ask. This is Darrell Issa’s problem as well, trying to act like a lawyer when he is not one. And everyone and anyone should look at what has resulted from his very poor questioning skills: In contrast to Gowdy, every question Issa asks leads to a bifurcation: Well, it could mean this and it could mean that. This does not happen when Gowdy asks a question: When he asks a question, you see the witness shed a few beads of sweat, then try to come up with an answer. THAT IS HOW LIES come out!!
The difference is between amateur and skilled, professional lawyering, and it is massive.
Amateurs/laymen have done the suggested action zero times. Professionals have done the suggested operation a dozen, a hundred, or perhaps 500 times. A competent business-acquisition lawyer would NEVER EVER IN A MILLION YEARS think they were a competent estate lawyer.
And you’re exactly right, perhaps the litigant or the administrator of a LZ-originated estate plan (particularly trusts, which can be exceptionally tricky) thinks they have their bases covered, but you know and I know that one “i” left undotted or one “T” uncrossed can result in a TOTAL FAILURE of the intended structure and the default condition is ABSOLUTELY NOT the judge saying “now now, I know you really meant this, not what you wrote, why don’t you go back and rewrite this and come back next Thursday?” Oh no. One of the people needed to sign the docs is dead. You can not get there. Now, everything you do, and must do, is measured in $20K increments, and may not work at all. It is ghastly horrible to be in that situation, and the chances are, you will if you try to pretend you know what you are doing in complex areas of the law.
I know a guy who had someone else type up a Legal Zoom will for him. The guy who typed it was in it for about 33% of the estate.
In California there is a presumption that a person who drafted a will and was also the beneficiary was using undue influence.
An attorney could have told the guy that drafted it that he needed a “Certificate of Independent Review” — a document by an independent attorney attesting that the drafting was on the up-and-up. This would have been sufficient to overcome the presumption of undue influence, or at least close enough to scare off challenges to the will.
That was not done.
The Will also LACKED a no-contest provision.
The attorney for the drafter tried to say “My client did not draft the Will. Legal Zoom drafted the Will.” That argument did not get tested. The case settled with the drafter receiving about half of what he would have received if not for these two mistakes.