Wills & Trusts - Use a Lawyer or Do It Yourself

Roy S. Gilbert

September 08, 2025

You have a bank account or two and maybe a 401(k) at work. You might own a house and a car with a loan on each. You may also have non-retirement investment accounts. You might be married with a couple of children.

Do you need a will? Do you need a revocable trust? Do you need a power of attorney or advance health care directives such as a health care proxy, living will or HIPAA release? If you do, do you need a lawyer to create these documents or can you do it yourself? The questions are simple, but the answers are not.

If you have a family to pass wealth to and you have a specific or unique asset distribution plan that you want followed, you probably will need some kind of estate planning document. If you don’t have any such document, there may be default distribution plans in place as a result of asset titling and state law. These default plans may or may not comport with your wishes. For example:

Without a will, assets you own in your name alone (no joint and survivor ownership) and with no beneficiary designation may end up being split between your surviving spouse and children. They won’t all necessarily pass to the surviving spouse as is often thought¹.
Real estate titled to both of you as husband and wife or other property titled to both of you specifically as joint and survivor owners may pass directly to the survivor, regardless of whether you have a will or what your will says^2,3.
Accounts you have designating a beneficiary may pass directly to that beneficiary on your death, regardless of whether you have a will or what your will says^4,5.

Once you determine that a default plan may not be right for you or might not address all of your assets or post-mortem wishes, you may need some kind of document to describe your desired estate distribution plan. The questions that next arise are: what kind of documents should you be considering and what should they say?

A will is often (though not always) a simple document addressing what happens to your property when you die. Living trusts are usually more complex and expensive to create. However, they may provide more direction about how your property is managed prior to death (in the event of an incapacity, for example) as well as after death. Living trusts can be made irrevocable as well as revocable⁷.
Whether a will or living trust best serves your property distribution goals is a larger question than simply how to create the document. Its answer requires an examination of your current financial condition and your objectives as well as coordinating the financial decisions you have made and will make in the future. Which document best serves you is a question where a do-it-yourself model may need to yield to a more formal advice model to avoid potentially expensive errors or omissions.
In addition to the will vs. living trust question is the more important issue of what the document will say. Do you want to leave property to your children in equal amounts and/or in the same exact manner? Are there any special needs or disabled people who are heirs that need to be considered? Do you want to leave assets to charity or specific assets to specific people? Do you want to disinherit someone who would ordinarily expect to be an heir? Is there a need or desire to leave assets to a trust? Again, the presence of these individually important issues might tend to suggest securing formal advice rather than attempting to do it yourself.

Is a will or living trust the only document that you need? In many cases is it not. Advisors often suggest consideration of durable powers of attorney to appoint an agent to make financial decisions for you if you cannot make them for yourself. They also suggest documents appointing an agent to make health care decisions for you if you cannot do so for yourself. In any particular case there may be other documents suggested⁸. These documents are not necessarily simple ones. If there are questions about which ones you need or should have and how they should be constructed, perhaps you shouldn’t try to do it without advice.

Once you have decided on the documents you want, the next issue may revolve around who you nominate in these documents to implement them in accordance with your desires.

Who do you want to nominate as the Executor to implement the instructions in your will?
Who do you want to nominate as the Trustee of any living trust or of any trusts created by your will?
Who might you appoint to make financial and/or health care decisions in your stead?
Who might you nominate to be the Guardian of any minor children?
What about successors in the event any of your original nominees fail to serve?
Might you want to impose any limitations on the breadth of decision-making for any of your nominees?
Would you consider nominating more than one person to serve in a decision-making capacity at the same time such as co-Executors, co-Trustees and co-agents?
Might there be a need for an institution to serve as an Executor, Trustee or agent?

The foregoing represents just some of the issues that can arise – even in “simple” situations. Some of these issues may require professional advice to resolve.

Do you need a lawyer to create your documents or can you do it yourself? It depends. In a very simple situation, ideally where dependents such as children are not involved, perhaps where only limited assets are involved, where no unusual obstacles or goals exist, maybe. An analogy: If you have a small splinter in your finger, you may choose to attempt to remove it yourself rather than go to an urgent care clinic or to the emergency room.

On the other hand, sometimes we have complex issues to navigate. Sometimes we may not even know if a situation is truly simple even though we think it is. Paraphrasing Mark Twain differentiating opinion from fact: it’s not only what you don’t know that can hurt you, but it’s what you think you know for sure that just isn’t so⁹.

There may be a relatively narrow group of people that could fare quite well with do-it-yourself documents created with some of the online services available. However, as can be inferred from the discussion above, determining whether you are in this group often requires that you secure some planning advice first. In addition, coordinating the provisions of your self-created documents with the remainder of your financial and estate planning decisions may also require consulting an advisor.

The purveyors of online document creation software may assist in creating a legally effective document but they may not be there to provide legal advice to you about what kind of document is in your best interest without additional payment for that legal advice^5,6. If you are inclined to pay for a do-it-yourself estate plan and then utilize additionally paid legal help from the online service, why not consult local counsel from the outset?

The Family Wealth Decisions Group has significant experience in discussing estate planning with its clients as well as experience integrating and coordinating the estate plan with other financial planning decisions. If you want to talk about your estate planning and how it might impact other financial decisions you have made or may make, we’d like to talk to you. Please feel free to contact us for a complimentary consultation.

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