mnbwca Asked February 2016
Legalzone for completing POA and Health directive plus will?
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Pay them $30 to print out on archival or print myself? Any negative points for doing this online vs going to a lawyer? Any pros or cons for Legal zone?
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I believe that Legal Zoom fills out the legal documents associated with your State. There are other websites where you do it yourself, don't try to fill out the forms yourself.... one misplaced word or one missing word could create a landmine in the future.
Personally, I rather sit across a table from a local Elder Law Attorney that way I can ask 101 questions and there is no miscommunications. Yes, it will be expensive, but worth every penny in the long run. And if a year later I have more questions, I can go back in front of that same Attorney.
If money is an issue in what you can afford, on-line service is better than not having any Power of Attorney and Will in place.
Nor would I rely on a website unless it's Nolo, which I've found on the few occasions I've used it has some decent advice. I have not checked their forms though.
One of the major issues that would concern me is whether anyone needing who needs estate planning has any issues that he or she may not realize could be problematic and require special provisions. Another is that only the person who wants the documents drawn up has the best knowledge of his or her situation, and without sharing those kinds of details, may end up using a boiler plate form that really ignores or worse yet complicates a situation not addressed in the standardized documents.
I get e-mail newsletters from one of the firms for which I worked; there are a lot of changes and specific issues that really require the knowledge of someone who practices in the estate planning area, who keeps up to date on statutory changes and case law, and updates the documents regularly. Sometimes I can't even understand the statutory changes, let alone figure out how they impact our situation or how to integrate them into documents.
Ask yourself this: what do you want a POA for? Do you want a springing POA or DPOA? How much authority do you want to delegate? Do you want one proxy, and if so, what happens if that person becomes ill, unable to serve, or decides he/she no longer wants the responsibility?
Do you want joint proxies working together or with independent authority to act? Do you know what the pitfalls of each might be?
At the time we met with our attorney for my sister's and later my father's estate plans, I hadn't as much knowledge of DPOAs but was later glad that my attorney created a DPOA which I could use w/o declaration of incompetency. And I did have to use it, for very unexpected situations. She was very experienced and provided us with documents that covered a multitude of situations, including some which we never even conceived of.
I am greatly encouraged by this news, maybe now I can research more and proceed to help my husband. (and I).
Also had to use them to get past records from treating doctors.
I am so glad that I chose the attorney I chose - she was an outstanding attorney.
I even got my parents to use the attorney [a young woman] as my Mom was from the old school that women shouldn't be attorneys, doctors, sports announcers, etc. but stay home to have babies... [sigh]. It all worked out :)