Find an Attorney

The traditional way to look for an attorney is through personal referral. A sound guideline is to make sure that the attorney you select spends at least 50% of their time and practice doing estate planning. The cost of a complete estate plan, including a Living Trust for a Husband and wife can range from $2,000 – $10,000.00

There is a new kind of attorney that offers what are called “unbundled Legal services” which means you purchase just the legal services you want and need and no more. Many of these attorneys now offer living trust creation for a fixed price and an affordable fee.

A listing of these attorneys can be found at MyLawyer.com – which is a Directory of online law firms offering legal services for a fixed price.

Here is an example of a law firm offering estate planning services for a fixed fee, based in North Carolina: Kimbro Legal Services. Stephanie Kimbro is a pioneer in the field of virtual lawyering and delivering legal services online. Another example is GranatWills.com, the first virtual law firm in the State of Maryland created by Attorney Richard Granat. Both of these web sites are examples of lawyers who are experimenting with delivering legal services online at an affordable fee.

For the same price that you would pay a non-lawyer company like LegalZoom, you can get your legal forms with legal advice included. This is a better deal. With LegalZoom you get no legal advice, just a legal form. If all you are looking for is a legal form, you get get it for free from web sites like this one and others like it.

Another good source of attorneys is the Law Firm Directory maintained by Nolo – the leading self-help law book publisher in the United States. Each attorney is profiled and their fees are often disclosed for different legal tasks.

Nolo’s Lawyer Directory: Find an Estate Planning Lawyer

Networks of attorney that specialize in estate planning:

The National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, Inc.,
American Academic of Estate Planning Attorneys

Other important lawyer directories are:

AVVO – which provides attorney ratings.
Findlaw.Com – which provides profiles of lawyers.
Lawyers.Com – which also provides profiles of lawyers.