It doesn’t matter that you don’t have much if any money. If you have children, you have a reason to do a will.

You and your spouse can die together. There are plenty of opportunities for this to happen. Usually it doesn’t happen but sometimes a car gets hit head on by an 18 wheeler.

If you and your spouse die, your kids, aside from being devastated will be placed in legal limbo. Legal limbo means some complete stranger will decide who gets to raise your kids.

I’ve met a lot of judges.  All of the judges that I’ve met work diligently to “get it” right. But no matter how hard a judge works, she can’t possibly know everything you do about your relatives.

Most of the harm will be done by family members who think they’re acting in the child’s best interest. This may or may not involve your living relatives spending large sums of money to bitterly fight with each other in court.

And if anyone senses that there may be money involved….watch out. Right now, everybody fights over every small amount of money. If the last words you read are “MACK” your estates may have a potentially significant wrongful death claim.  Relatives who didn’t care about your children when you were living will suddenly want to parent them.

My point is that you need to decide who will take care of your children in the event something happens to you. You. Not a judge. Not your Aunt. You.

Telling someone who you want to care for you children doesn’t count. Doing a will does.

Naming a guardian is perhaps the last and best gift that you could give to your children and family members.

Love your children enough to name a guardian for them.

How can law make you happy?

Don't Worry, Do A Will, Be Happy

Easy.

Last week I was listening to NPR. They had on an economist discussing the economics of happiness.

Essentially, instability of affairs makes people unhappy. This is why going through divorces, evictions, and foreclosures are so stressful.

Stability makes people happy.

The economist stated that income does not relate to happiness. People who make lots of money can be just as unhappy as people who don’t make much money at all. The key, the economist said, was economic stability. He said the purchase of life insurance is actually a renewable source of happiness as opposed to purchasing a new TV. Life insurance makes people feel more stable.

I’ll say the same is true for doing a will and doing some simple estate planning. From practice, both having done a number of wills and having my own done, it’s apparent to me that the act of executing a will usually makes people happy because it provides them with security.

I can’t imagine leaving it up to a judge to decide who would get to raise my child if something were to happen to my me and my wife.  Thinking about that would make me unhappy.

So, invest in your happiness right now, do a will.

I’m a longtime Sirius Satellite radio subscriber. This alone qualifies me as an expert on Legal Zoom ads. For those who don’t subscribe to satellite radio – let me fill you in: Legal Zoom advertises non-stop on satellite radio.

Every time, I hear one of the legal zoom ads about wills I think that I’m a fool. The ads drive home the point that there are lawyers out there who are able to fund their kids college education by doing three or four simple wills per year.

I have no idea what legal zoom charges for wills and I really don’t care.

What I do know from listening to those ads is that I’m a fool for charging what I charge for wills.

The truth is Legal Zoom probably makes a boatload of money from convincing the public that I make a boatload of money from writing wills.

If you’re looking to do a will I encourage you to contact a local attorney who does wills.  I don’t fear competition from legal zoom one bit because I know I can offer my clients an excellent service at a competitive price.

Oh and one last thing, does anyone know the Connecticut attorney who was too busy to write wills for his family and his wife contacted legal zoom? Does that person exist? I have my doubts.