Check into easy ways to avoid probate, and you'll save your family some headaches. 3. The cost of probate will eat up all of the estate assets. There are a lot of scary stories out there about how much probate costs. If you believe the worst of them, you might think that your family won't get a thing once the lawyer fees and court costs are paid.
On the other hand, if the lawyer grates on your nerves or hypes the tension every time they open their mouth, you could still win your legal matter but want to die anyway. 3. Lack of Decisiveness. From the first meeting with your lawyer they should be able to lay out a plan for how to proceed with your legal matter.
Feb 22, 2018 · These types of wills are called “Holographic Wills.” Drafting your will yourself is a very, very bad idea. Why? Well, let’s start with the obvious… Holographic Wills are Not Written By Estate Planning Attorneys. Most, if not all people who write their own wills do …
Nov 02, 2017 · By recognizing electronic wills, the Law Commission endorses the mistaken view that a “cost effective” or “do-it-yourself” estate plan is as effective as one prepared by an attorney. Our experience is that estate plans are cheap compared to the litigation arising from inept homemade wills. The problems associated with handwritten—or ...
There are lots of reasons to write a will, but worrying about the state snatching your family’s inheritance is not one of them. If you die without...
Most estates don’t take years and years to resolve. Usually, the only delay is the period, mandated by state law, that gives creditors time to file...
There are a lot of scary stories out there about how much probate costs. If you believe the worst of them, you might think that your family won’t g...
Some couples decide not to leave each other a significant amount of assets. Especially if each one owns some assets independently, they may agree t...
Just because you were always the responsible one—or just bigger and able to push your little siblings around—doesn’t carry any weight when it comes...
3. Lack of Decisiveness. From the first meeting with your lawyer they should be able to lay out a plan for how to proceed with your legal matter. Yes, sometimes it requires they reseach a particular issue or law, but reseaching should be step one in the plan.
It is that sense of care, friendship, and family that allows some lawyer to never have to pay for a yellowpages ad or television advertising because whenever someone has a problem, people refer them to their friend, to their family, to their lawyer.
Most Courts have call in proceedures for lawyers so that their location and ETAs are known by the clerk and or Judge. As a general rule if the Judge calls your case, immediately stand up, wait for the Court / Judge to recognize you, and simply answer what is asked.
Any time you talk to your attorney, they should be able to tell you what is the next step in your case. 4. Being on Time. Lawyers often have multiple cases set on any given day.
In almost any type of legal case there will be lulls where there is not much being done on any particular week or month. If your lawyer has explained the plan and you can communciate with them you should not have to worry if there is nothing done for periods of time.
A competent lawyer can usually come into a case at any point in the process either by agreement or by force. A competent lawyer is what any person needs to go to war with. If you feels dissatisfied with the way your case is progressing or information is communicated to you, tell your lawyer.
Personality conflicts. Some lawyers are high energy all the time. Some are calm and serene. Others are either somewhere in between or change based on the circumstances or what they had for breakfast. If you had to hire a lawyer, then you have a serious problem.
Holographic wills are entirely handwritten and typically signed by the testator without a witness present or the help of an attorney. For example, a Czech man once realized his impending death and wrote on his bedroom wall: “Vše ženě”—“everything to wife.” The “Guinness Book of World Records” lists this as the shortest will. Cecil George Harris was a close contender. When he became trapped under his own tractor, the doomed Canadian exercised impressive resourcefulness by carving his last will into the tractor’s fender: “In case I die in this mess I leave all to the wife. Cecil Geo. Harris.” We wonder if Mr. Harris, using his last moments of life to scratch his wishes into a tractor, may have wished to reconsider his decision to forego a formal will.
Finally, electronic instruments can be easily fabricated or tampered with. We litigated a case in which a lawyer recorded a conversation with his elderly client. At one point, the recording stopped. When it picked up again the conversation had suspiciously shifted. The lawyer claimed that he flipped the tape, but we suspected that he had exchanged words with his client off the record, or worse, erased damaging portions of the conversation. These kinds of suspicions, and the expensive litigation they engender, could become common if electronic wills become permissible. After all, how difficult would it be for a cunning child to send email from an ailing parent’s computer?