Drafting estate documents requires a high level of skill, knowledge, and precision, especially when using a template. There are nuances, difficulties and roadblocks to providing a legal service that meets the high standard of practice while being affordable for the client. Prolegis | Estate Planning was designed with legal teams in mind, facilitating and improving on the entire process.
Here are 7 challenges that legal teams can face when drafting estate planning documents for their clients:
Getting information in a timely manner
Getting the appropriate information within the desired timeframe can be a struggle for legal teams. Some clients may require more than one appointment to collect the information, and sometimes those appointments can have large periods of time between them. Other clients struggle completing the questionnaires that provide the information the legal team needs to draft the will.
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When you create a wills matter within Prolegis, you can start inputting information at any point. You can input information bit by bit, or all at once. You can also store any scanned documents or relevant files within the matter for easy reference. Clients can access a portal where the client can complete their personal information, the information about those that will be a part of the will, information about their assets and a customizable questionnaire can collect information even before setting an appointment.
Last minute changes
Sometimes at a signing appointment a client may request a change, or you notice an error in the drafted document. Some changes may require editing on each of the pages of the document. This can lengthen the appointment, taking up precious time in your workday.
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Document editing within Prolegis is quick and easy. You can find and replace words or phrases and edit the document (or set of documents) in any way you’d like. If a change includes information inputted in the matter, that can be adjusted and the estate documents can be reproduced with the click of a button. The document creation date and the edit date (if applicable) are both recorded within the software for future reference. A redline feature allows you to compare one version of the document to another. From Prolegis, documents are auto-formatted and can be exported for printing.
Booking an appointment to sign the will and estate documents
Coordinating busy schedules can prove difficult for clients who want to sign their drafted will, especially as many law firms only operate during typical business hours. Between back and forth correspondence, and frequent follow ups, it can be difficult to keep track of.
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Contact clients directly from within Prolegis to book an appointment. The built-in calendar will display all the appointments that have already been scheduled. Whether you meet once or twice with your client, you can track those appointments in Prolegis.
Drafting challenges
Each client is unique in situation, circumstance, and desires. This can make template generation difficult, with lots of time spent on editing little details, increasing the chance of errors in the documents. Drafting a will completely from scratch for each client is extremely time consuming, and again can miss important details that are required by law. Using a precedent based on a mail merge, or even using software that provides only a few options, can leave legal teams with significant drafting work for each will. Another challenge is when drafting a mirror will, you have to be sure that both drafts reflect changes made to the other.
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A flexible and powerful template is built right into Prolegis, which adjusts with each input into the matter. The Prolegis template is built to allow you to make decisions about logic and law and have the draft come as close as possible to the unique circumstances of your client. Built in Prolegis forms ensureyou’re getting the information you need, so the will responds precisely to your clients’ requests. Use the redline feature in Prolegis to compare mirror wills.
Tracking progress
The work day is busy. With various files each with different deadlines and tasks, tracking progress of each requires a transparent workflow. Long delays in client responses can lead to losing track of those clients.
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Prolegis has a dashboard that helps you keep track of all your matters, and know at a quick glance where they are along the process. Know instantly which clients still need to book an appointment, sign their documents, receive a report, or any other workstep that your firm follows.
Reporting
Providing a report of legal work completed to your client is helpful to both you and your client and is best practice. However, this is yet one more document to customize and then provide to your client, being another step of the process that is easy to overlook or omit.
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Prolegis provides templates, or the ability to create a custom template, with your firm’s letterhead. This can be sent directly to your client with any desired documents that have been uploaded to Prolegis attached to the email. The key elements of a reporting letter can be automatically populated with the unique information for your client allowing you to provide a hard copy or send soft copy of wills documents to your client.
Storage
Finally, once all is completed and signed, comes storing the documents. Certain legal teams store the original wills for their clients, others store only a copy (hard or soft or both).
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Store a scanned copy of the will within your Prolegis matter for easy access. Put a note on the file to indicate that you are storing the original will in office. Provide a link to the client portal to give you client access to the documents in a more secure way.
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