As a Michigan estate planning lawyer, I am not worried about the effect of the Legalzoom, Suze Orman Trust-in-a-box, or Quicken Willmakers of the world. What I do worry about is the effect of those products on the general public. Our Michigan estate planning office has seen far too many people using these cheap products, trying to substitute cheap forms for experienced legal estate planning advice of attorneys, with often times, poor consequences.Those consequences include, assets going through a Michigan probate, that shouldn't, disqualifying special needs children from governmental benefits, unintended distributions of assets to individuals not planned for and on and on and on. Why leave it up to chance that your heirs may have to clean up your mess because you decided to save a few bucks?
There are times where having no plan at all and relying on the Michigan laws of intestacy are better than relying on these cheap forms.
The blog by the Los Angeles Estate Planning Lawyers of the Proviso Law firm had an interesting post on this topic. You can read it here : Los Angeles Estate Planning Lawyer.
-Christopher J. Berry, Esq.
Bloomfield Hills Estate Planning Lawyer
