Testing Online Wills Causes Reaction From Estate Planners

A recent Wall Street Journal article has caught the attention of the estate planning world.  The article is entitled Before It’s Too Late: A Test of Online Wills.  In the article, the author uses four online will-writing tools to plan for a hypothetical married and childless couple.  The author discusses various planning techniques used by the online planning sites, such as a living trust, revocable trust, living will, and advanced medical directive. 

For a thorough critique of the article and the hypothetical couple’s reliance on the documents, see the comments posted in response to the article and the blog post published by the Law Offices of David A. Shulman in South Florida entitled The Wall Street Journal Totally Blows it on Online Wills.

Or, you could just read the last paragraph of the article: 

Which program produces the superior will? Each site purports to yield documents that clearly outline our intentions in the event of our demise or death, although we didn’t hire a lawyer to review them. 

Maybe the real test will come when the hypothetical couple hypothetically passes away. 

See Jane Hodges, Before It’s Too Late: A Test of Online Wills, WSJ, Nov. 12, 2009. 

Special thanks to Michael S. Knowles (J.D. candidate 2011, Creighton School of Law), Patrick S. Sylvester (Attorney & Counselor at Law, Sylvester Law Firm, PC), and  Joel Dobris (Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law) for bringing this article to my attention.