Getting started
What it costs, in actual numbers.
You should not have to call a law firm to find out what it charges. Here are our numbers, along with what sits inside each one, so you are deciding with something better than a guess.
Before the numbers
Why no honest lawyer will quote your whole plan over the phone.
We get asked what an estate plan should cost more often than anything else, and it deserves a straight answer. Here is the straight answer: the fee depends on what you own, how it is titled, and what you want to happen when you are gone. There is no one-size-fits-all plan and there is no one-size-fits-all price.
This is also the reason so many plans fail. Families shop on price, because price is the only thing anybody has given them to compare. They buy a set of documents that looks like everyone else’s set of documents, and it does not work on the day it is needed.
So we do it in the other order. You find out what you have, what would happen to it today, and what each of your options actually costs. Then you choose.
Pricing
The numbers
Estate Planning Session
$750
The 90-minute working meeting where your plan gets designed. You complete your Estate Inventory beforehand, and in the session we go through everything you own and everyone you love, and what would happen to all of it if you died or lost capacity tomorrow. Do the homework and the fee works for you: credited in full toward your plan, and not charged at all if we conclude you do not need one.
Estate Plan Review and Checkup
$950
The same meeting, for people who already have a plan. We read what you have, tell you what still works, and show you where your life has moved past your documents.
The plan itself
$2,000 to $8,000
For a married couple, depending on which of the three levels you choose during the session. Single planning is discounted from there. The fee is flat, quoted before any drafting starts, and you are the one who picks it.
The session fee rewards preparation. Before you come in, we send you your Estate Inventory. Complete it, and the $750 is no longer the price of a meeting: it is credited in full toward your plan if you go on to plan with us, and if we conclude that you do not need a plan, or that there is nothing we can offer you, it is not charged at all. If we recommend a plan and you decide not to move forward, the fee stands, and it stays with you as a credit toward planning if you come back later. Arrive without the inventory done, and the $750 is simply the fee for the session. The details are on the session page.
Everything above is a flat fee. You will never be watching a meter while you ask a question, and you will know the whole number before any work starts.
The part people do not expect
You choose your own fee.
In the session we walk you through three levels of planning and what each one does and does not protect. Then you pick. Not us. There is no version of this where you leave the room having been talked into the expensive one.
That only works if you know enough to choose well, which is why the education comes first and the price comes second. The goal is not to sell you the most planning. It is to make sure that whatever you choose, you chose it for a reason you could explain to your own children.
Common questions
The things people actually ask
Why can you not just tell me a price over the phone?
We can tell you the session price right now, and we just did. What nobody can honestly quote sight unseen is the plan itself, because the fee depends on what you own, how it is titled, and what you want to happen. A lawyer who gives you an exact figure by email before asking any of that is quoting a product rather than advising you.
Is the session fee wasted if I decide not to plan with you?
No, and if you did the homework it may not be charged at all: when we conclude you do not need a plan, the session is free. Either way, completing the inventory means you leave with a complete written inventory of your estate, a licensed attorney's assessment of it, and your incapacity documents, a General Durable Power of Attorney, an Advanced Medical Directive, and a HIPAA Waiver & Release, prepared from your inventory. When we do recommend a plan and you pass on it, the fee stands, and it stays on your file as a credit if you come back to plan later.
What if my situation is genuinely simple?
Then that is what you should buy, and we will say so in the room. There is a floor below which a plan is really just paperwork, and if you are near it you are better off spending less. We would rather tell you that than take a fee for planning you did not need.
I am single. Does that change the price?
Yes. The range above is for a married couple. Single planning is discounted from there, because there is less to coordinate and fewer moving parts to keep aligned.
Are there costs later that I am not seeing here?
The legal fee is flat and agreed before the work starts, so it does not move because a matter took longer than expected. Money that goes to someone other than us, a county recording fee for a deed for example, is a pass-through, and you will know about it before it is spent.
Keep reading
Guides on this subject
Ready to find out what your plan should cost?
Start with a free 15-minute call. Already know you want to plan? Book the Estate Planning Session instead.