Quote:
Originally Posted by suesiegel
Franky, I read your post because it is long past due that we rewrite our will.
It is clear to me that EVERY atty that you have listed is FEMALE. Three out of three could not be a coincidence.
Having said that, I would look for a large law firm. Years ago when my parents passed away, my sister and I needed to settle their limited estate. We had a copy of their will and were told it was no good as it did not have the BLUE COVER ON IT. I triend to contact the atty with her name on the will and discovered that she had closed her office and was now????? But, she claimed she remembered mailing it to my sister. HOW STUPID IS THAT. The will was over ten years old and she remembers mailing it? In any case, to get a copy WITH A BLUE COVER ON IT with no one contesting the will cost us a couple of hundred dollars in legal bills.
Also, back to my experience. I located an atty that would handle the distribution of my parents estate at a FLAT FEE of $2,000. Sadly, there were issues between my sister and myself not due to the estate but due to other things. My sister wanted some other atty and rather than to fight on this issue I gave her the choice she wanted. When the estate was finally settled the atty MY SISTER WANTED sent us a bill of over $8,000. He did not even supply an itemized bill which you are entitled to by LAW. As check over of his bill and he charged us his time plus his assistants time to tell his assistant what to do. A quick check and his assistant was A LAW STUDENT working for free. A bit of action ON MY PART. Telling him I was going to report him to THE BAR and he agreed to cut his bill by 4-5,000.
JUST BEWARE OF WHO YOU HIRE.
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Thank you for your response and advice. Based upon your experience, good questions to ask would be about the probate process (although when that becomes an issue, it will be an issue for our beneficiaries and not for us).
So glad you pushed back on the attorney's bill and prevailed. Sounds like highway robbery. Kudos to you.
As far as the fact that the attorneys referenced in my first post are all female in no way represents a personal bias. I simply relied on the volume of positive responses and these three names came up repeatedly -- no male name came even close. So from my point of view it is nothing BUT
pure coincidence. Regardless, I don't care about their gender, rather having an approachable, cost effective and knowledgeable professional help us with our estate.
Do you have any lawyer/law firm in mind that you are considering?