Mary Trotter
 

Mary Trotter revised a Florida Living Trust for me and produced a new Florida Living Trust for a friend whose Trust was from another state.

Both were quickly and thoroughly done, reviewed in detail in person by Mary, witnessed by members of Mary's staff, and the final work product was turned over to me. In addition, an electronic copy of the finished, signed document was stored by Mary's office to protect against the possible damage or loss of my original copy.

If I needed other work done, I would return to her office.

Patrick Smith

Have you met with one or all of those on your short list?
Most of them offer a no cost initial consultation.
We were in your decision making position and after meeting with Amy Pittman we felt very comfortable in moving forward with her.

Amy is a member of the Rotary Club of the Villages (morning) and is actively engaged with our philanthropic efforts in the Villages and through the world.

Good Citizen, good mother, in addition to her outstanding legal background and skills.

We just saw Pittman. Our needs very basic so thought $1,000 was a bit high? I thought maybe $800 would be more appropriate for us.

:agree:Same here.

For my two cents worth
 

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.

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?