Only 46% of Americans currently have wills. Just 36% of people under 50 years old have wills. However, to ensure that your assets get handed down to the right members of your family, it is essential to hire an estate attorney to construct a will.
If you are thinking about hiring an estate attorney, you probably want to look at Lake Mills lawyers or Watertown lawyers that do this. You may ask yourself, “where is there an estate attorney near me?”
Well, this is your guide to finding one.
Ask About Experience
The first thing that you should do is ask about an estate planning attorney’s experience. How long have they been practicing law? What type of law do they practice?
You particularly want an estate planning attorney that specializes in estate planning in this situation. This is generally a simple task for lawyers to accomplish. For that reason, you should not have trouble finding a lawyer that can construct a will.
Still, you would probably prefer this not to be the first will that they do or just be something that a lawyer does on the side. Try to find one that specializes in this and has years of experience doing it.
Look for Location
Next, you can filter out estate planning attorneys just by searching for ones in a particular location. Some lawyers specialize in a certain town or city, so they may advertise online to have content appear with certain location results.
For example, let’s say that you need an estate planning attorney in the Lake Mills area because you do not want to travel too far to arrange this. You can simply type in “Lake Mills attorneys” online and see what search results come up.
This should give you an idea of what lawyers are practicing in that area or who the closest estate planning attorneys to that area are. A more effective way to do this can be by typing in “lawyers near me” to see which lawyer is the closest to your home.
From there, check their websites (assuming they have one) and see if they do estate planning.
Ask About Cost
One thing that you should do before hiring an estate planning attorney is find out exactly how much their services cost. What this will cost depends on the lawyer and depends on your will.
If your will is simple and easy to navigate, it can cost as little as $300 to construct a will. In this situation, a lawyer is likely to just charge a flat fee for the service.
However, where this gets complicated is if your will is more difficult and complex to draw up paperwork for. This can be if you have several properties and businesses that are going to be divided up in many different scenarios.
In that situation, you could be looking at four figures for drawing up a will. Ask about this in advance and then decide for yourself if you think the services are worth the price that an estate planning attorney is quoting.
Read Online Reviews
Next, you should read online reviews of the estate planning attorneys that you research. How good are they? How expensive are they? How reliable are they?
These are questions that should be able to get answered based on the online reviews that you see.
For example, if you see a lawyer’s reviews that are mostly 5-stars and all of the comments are talking about their pleasantness and reliability, they are likely to be a good hire.
On the other end of the spectrum, negative reviews can tell you which estate planning attorneys to rule out. These can be ones that average 2-star reviews and have comments about being rude and disorganized.
Take the time to read about other customers’ experiences with a lawyer before you automatically decide to hire one.
Ask Around
If you do not trust strangers, perhaps something you can do is ask your friends and family if they know an estate planning attorney that can help you. An example can be a friend that is close to your age who already constructed a will for their family.
As for family, you may be able to ask a parent that is still alive, a sibling, or even an aunt or uncle. If you start at a young enough age, you should have plenty of options for this situation.
Go With Your Gut
Finally, trust your gut when it comes to finding an estate planning attorney that can change your will for you. You are thinking about the legal representative that you will trust to carry out your affairs and your wishes.
This is important becomes when it comes time to enforce this, you are not going to be here to put a stop to it. You are going to have to have deep trust in the lawyer that you hire to carry out your will exactly as you drew it up.
Make sure that you trust the person that you are hiring to draw your will.
Hire an Estate Attorney Near Me
These are some of the things that you should look for when it comes to hiring a lawyer for estate planning. If you are wondering how you can find an estate attorney near me, listen to the tips above.
Make sure that you trust them, read reviews, make sure the price is right, search by location, and more.
Do you need an estate planning attorney to change your will? Message us today to find out how to get that done.