A FAST FOOD SOCIETY

This is the age of casual dining. If you want a hamburger, go to the drive-up window of one of the chains, push your money through the first window, and receive your hamburger through the second window. Whether they are flame-broiled, or microwaved, or whatever else they do with them, they all seem to taste the same.

There are various services on the web which offer wills and other documents for modest amounts of money. These forms might work in some cases, and in other cases the results could be horrible.

For example, suppose that a widow seeks to make a will leaving everything to one of her children. She has some assets in her own name but most of the assets she has been enjoying, including the family homestead, are in the trust her late husband established. She buys an off-the-shelf form will, which states that her entire estate goes to the one child.

Unfortunately, the terms of the will do not affect her husband's trust. Under the trust she had the power to "appoint" - that, is direct - where the assets were to go in that trust. Because her will failed to exercise her power of appointment, her husband's trust assets - most of the family wealth - all went to another child.

Suppose that a spouse makes a will, leaving everything to the other spouse. After the death of the first spouse, the survivor is diagnosed with Alzheimer's and enters a nursing home. All of the assets received from the first spouse are paid out to the nursing home. If the first spouse had used a special needs trust, those assets would have been protected.

The fee a lawyer charges for preparing a will is not for the preparation of the document itself. That is easy to do.

The difficult work is analyzing the data provided by the client, asking questions, determining what is relevant, asking more questions, and then deciding what is needed in the will. This is where the fee is earned.

One of the simplest tools I know is a scalpel - I would prefer to have it used by a skilled surgeon, rather than my carpenter. The same thing applies to legal documents.