Personal Finance Considerations: How to Find the Right Estate Planning Lawyer for Your Needs
If you are a person who could have a lot of things that you will leave behind to others when it is time to leave this earth, you may want to start thinking about estate planning. It is important that you do this as you want to feel secure about what will happen to your estate after you are gone. It’s probably a good idea to also find a good estate planning lawyer who can help you with this task. Without a good lawyer, it can be a daunting task. The reason is that estate planning is more than just a will, it involves living wills and other financial planning that will ensure all your wishes are carried out.
The best thing to do when looking for a lawyer is to meet with several different ones. You should do this to familiarize yourself with some of the attorneys out there and this will allow you to find one with whom you are most comfortable. Be sure not to sign any type of agreement until you have spoken to at least three different attorneys.
Make sure when you talk to each attorney that you find out what their education background was and make sure that the attorney you choose has a 4-year Bachelor’s degree and a 3-year Juris Doctorate from an accredited law school. You should also have passed the state bar exam.
You also need to find out who will actually be working on your estate planning file. Will it be the lawyer himself or a paralegal or paralegal? The lawyer will charge you a high hourly rate, while the paralegal will charge you less. In other cases, the lawyer will only charge a flat fee and anyone in the office could work on your file.
If it turns out that a paralegal will be working on your file, be sure to ask to meet with them so you can build a relationship with them as well. You should have a working relationship with all of the people who will deal with your estate planning and handle all of your important information.
You should also find out how much of their time they spend on estate planning. You want to make sure that the attorney you choose does a lot of estate planning and that it’s not just something you do on the side. You want the attorney you choose to spend at least half of their time on this type of work, better if more. This way you know that the lawyer is taking continuing education to keep up with all the different rules of this type of law.
You want to make sure you don’t forget to ask how much a retainer fee is and then, when you’re sure you’ve found the right attorney, sit down and go over a retainer agreement. This will outline the terms of the relationship you will have with the lawyer and his law firm. Be sure to request your own copy of this contract and any other important documents that may be part of your estate planning.