Every year, people in the United States spend upwards of $15.8 billion on estate lawyers and attorneys. That is one way of measuring just how much value estate attorneys provide for their clients.
Of course, the magnitude of those numbers also indicates that you have a lot of choices for estate attorneys. How can you find the right one for you? Just Googling for “estate attorney near me” will not provide you with the best result possible.
Fortunately, you can follow these principles to help you find the best estate attorney in Watertown for your situation. Read on to learn all about the most important steps to take to help you find the right attorney!
Know What You Are Looking For
Before you spend time looking around, it is important that you know what to look for it. Otherwise, you could waste hours of time barking up the wrong tree.
The first thing to understand is the difference between an estate attorney and an estate planning attorney. Many people think they have found the perfect estate attorney only to find out that they have actually been investigating estate planning attorneys instead. So what is the difference?
Estate planning attorneys help people prepare for the future death of themselves or a loved one. This can include things like planning wills.
In contrast, estate attorneys in Watertown help people manage the situation after a loved one dies. We will discuss the principles you can follow to help you find the best estate attorney, not how to find estate planning attorneys.
Before you start looking for an estate attorney, you should get clear about exactly what you are looking for. Write down all of the services you might need from an attorney.
Write down any special considerations your future attorney will have to account for it. If there is anything unusual about your situation, make sure to have that in mind as you search for an attorney who can help you.
Google for Trust and Estate Planning Attorney Near Me
Once you know what to look for, you will want to generate as many options as possible for your future attorney. The more options you consider, the more likely you are to end up with a great option. If you only look at one or two options, it is unlikely that you will find the best attorney for your situation.
Google is an easy place to find more than enough candidates for your future attorney. However, you should not stop there.
Ask for Recommendations for the Best Estate Attorney Near Me
Random attorneys you find on Google will probably not be the best candidates you consider. You will get a higher tier of candidates if you get recommendations from people who you know and trust.
It is probable that some of your friends, family, and acquaintances have had to depend on the services of estate attorneys in their past. Ask them for recommendations.
Before you ask for recommendations, it’s going to help to think through what you are going to share with the people you are asking for recommendations.
The more information they have about your situation, the more likely they are to know if an attorney they have in mind will be right for you or not. At the same time, you have to balance that against your personal privacy concerns.
However you decide to balance privacy and sharing, make sure to know what you are going to tell each person before you ask for a recommendation.
Asking for recommendations also provides another benefit. You may be able to receive recommendations for attorneys to avoid. That can help you remove candidate attorneys from your list without having to spend time investigating them.
Find a Will and Estate Planning Attorney Near Me With the Right Experience
The more experience an estate attorney has, the better. However, there are different kinds of experience.
Some estate attorneys also provide many other services. Even if they have 30 years of experience, if they have only spent 5% of their time actually performing estate attorney services, they may not be the right choice for you.
In fact, an attorney with just five years of experience might be a better candidate if they have spent the vast majority of those five years working exclusively for estate attorney clients.
You also have to consider any unusual aspects of your situation. Some people die of natural causes when they are old. Other people die in accidents when they are young or because of unusual medical challenges.
There are some meaningful differences in how to manage the estates of people who have had different kinds of deaths. The more experience a prospective attorney has working with situations similar to your own, the more likely they are to know how to handle the situation as well as possible.
As a result, it can help to ask prospective attorneys about the conditions of most of their clients. You might want to ask them about this before you tell them about your own situation. That way, you will know that they will not simply tell you what you want to hear.
Find an Estate Planning Attorney Near Me With Great Reviews
Today, you can find great ratings and reviews for practically any service. Estate attorneys in Watertown are no exception.
Online ratings and reviews can help you verify that the attorney you are considering does great work for their clients. The more satisfied their past clients are, the more likely you are to be satisfied as a potential future client.
Looking just at ratings can allow you to sort extremely quickly through your list of candidate attorneys. However, before you hire any specific attorney, make sure to read carefully through their written reviews.
Those reviews can provide extra context that can help you make sure there is nothing about your candidate attorney that makes them a less desirable candidate.
Understand How to Find the Best Estate Attorney in Your Area
We hope learning about how to find a great estate attorney has been helpful for you. Googling “estate attorney near me” can help you find an attorney, but it will probably not help you find the best attorney.
To learn more about how to find the right attorney for your situation or to speak with legal experts who can help you, feel free to reach out and get in touch with us here at any time!