by Hagana Kim

Created on: December 31, 2008

You don't, you hire a lawyer.

Attorneys are rarely worth what they cost because the outcome of litigation is so uncertain. Also, lawyers mostly perform elementary tasks that people could do on their own, such as filling out forms, and resolving petty disputes. Lawyers have a habit of creating as many problems as they solve, and if you're unfortunate enough to be involved in an entrenched legal battle, be assured that win or lose, the only certain winners are the lawyers on both sides.

But while lawyers may profit mostly from life's many ambiguities, they're actually a great value when dealing with life's certainties: death and taxes. People may learn through experience that a good tax lawyer can save them money, but estate distribution tends to be a once in a lifetime event. It's an unfortunate but certain fact that when it comes to writing wills, no one gets to learn from their own mistakes.

If you have a significant estate, it's imperative to hire an estate lawyer to write your will. This is not the time for amateur hour, or even semi-professional hour. Even my first-year property law professor hired an estate attorney to write his will.

Estate laws tend toward the absurd, and have little connection to logic, intuition, or common sense. There are an endless variety of rules for wills: typed wills vs. handwritten wills, how the will was signed, whether every page needs to be signed, whether all the pages were stapled, the number of witnesses, and whether you were acting crazy, senile, or just decided to change your mind. And this just relates to the dead person.

Then there are the third parties who will be fighting over your will. The family vs. the new friends you conveniently happened to make six months before you died. Were you really befriended? Seduced? Coerced? Defrauded? You probably couldn't answer these questions even if you were alive.

There are also additional rules for revising wills, what you can or cannot do in your will, and who you're allowed to leave out of your will, not to mention what happens if you die without a will. Then, take all of the above and multiply by fifty, since the rules are different in every state. Estate planning is one of the few areas in which you'll get significantly better advice from an attorney than you will from a Google search.

A simple cost-benefit analysis should be persuasive enough. Unless you're extremely fickle, you'll probably only have to write a few wills, maybe even just one. On the other hand, if you happen to move on and leave behind a bad will, you'll never be able to come back and fix it. You'll be stuck on the sidelines, watching lawyers and judges argue over your true intentions. Lawyers are much better at preventing problems than they are at resolving them, so plan accordingly and err on the side of safety. It can never hurt to have extra witnesses, a signature on every page, and a statement from a psychiatrist that you're of sound mind and judgment.

What may seem like unnecessary precautions become more important in proportion to the size of your estate, and it's worth keeping in mind that will contests are much more expensive than a good will, even if you're not around to foot the bill in person. It's not unlike the cost of a divorce compared to the cost of a prenuptial agreement. If you knew for certain you were headed for a divorce, would you really risk writing your own prenup?

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