We understand that you have many law firms to choose from as your estate planning counsel. We strive to keep our prices competitive and affordable for our clients. We are not the most expensive, nor are we the cheapest estate planning law firm in San Jose, CA. But we believe that we offer the best value to our clients, including exceptional service.
We offer 3 levels of planning to suit your varying needs. From starter plans primarily for families with young children and little in the way of financial wealth to more robust plans for well-established families concerned with matters of asset protection, preservation and increased growth, we’ve got you covered.
Generally, our fees for a married couple with kids who is not focused on keeping the family out of court range between $2,000 up to $8,000 on the high end for an extensive plan that provides significant asset protection after death + maximum protection for your assets from inadvertent loss to the State Department of Unclaimed Property or the probate process. It’s our opinion that if you are looking for less expensive planning, you may as well read up and do it yourself because you’ll get the same quality of planning online as you will with any lawyer charging fees that are less than what we offer here.
We’ve priced our planning for you at the intersection of affordability and effectiveness. When we meet for your Life & Legacy Planning Session, we will review the 3 planning levels with you, and you will choose your own fee based on your budget and the planning options that are most important to you and your family. Our plans are focused on ensuring your family has somewhere to turn if and when something happens to you, that your plan will work and you have real security, not the false security that comes with a cheap set of estate planning documents.
There truly is no one size fits all choice. We have created a process, though, to educate you quickly and effectively so that you can make empowered, informed choices about what you want for the people you love, so that you aren’t simply choosing the cheapest option because you don’t have any other basis for making your decisions. Read more about our Holistic Approach.
Beware of DIY estate plans
"My situation is simple. Why should I pay thousands of dollars to an estate planning attorney to prepare my living trust or will?"
We charge a fixed, flat fee for our services. Unlike other estate planning law firms, we include in our fixed fees all routine costs & expenses, including:
- Notary fees
- Preparation of grant deeds for all real estate into your trust
- Recording fees
These extra fees add up quickly! We don't like surprises. And we don't nickel and dime our clients or try to take advantage.
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Six Common Mistakes People Make When Hiring an Attorney
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It's difficult to give an accurate price quote without a consultation, because there are numerous factors we consider to ensure we are preparing a plan that meets your needs. Generally, there are 2 factors we consider: (1) the total assets a client owns, and (2) the structure of the trust. Unfortunately, clients often think they have a "simple" case but after examining all the issues of how they want their trust structured, we discover that there is something that requires more attention that the client didn't realize also needs to be addressed for their plan to work as intended. Our job is to ask the questions you didn't realize needed to be asked and discover issues you may not have previously thought about previously.
To ensure we are giving an accurate quote, we can't give a quote until after the initial consultation aka Life & Legacy Planning Session. There is just too much variation in the types of plans we prepare. During our initial consultation, we spend a lot of time educating our clients on the three types of plans so our clients can be confident that the plan we design is the right fit for them.
Frequently asked questions
Unfortunately, this is one of those situations where people have a different definition of "simple." Most times when people say they have a "simple" case, they mean they don't have much assets. They don't have a business, or multiple properties, and plan to leave everything outright to their adult children.
But remember when we said there are 2 factors we consider? What we just described above is the first factor: the total assets a client owns. However, there is also a second factor: the structure of the trust. And this is the factor that most people don't understand until after the consultation. There are too many options and potential consequences that people don't understand until we explain fully how a trust might work for them. There may also be title issues to your real estate that we need to fix (such as owning your home in joint tenancy). We hate to say this, but 85% of the time when people describe their "simple" case, we discover 1 or 2 issues that make the case not "simple."
We get it, hiring an attorney to prepare your estate plan is a large purchase for you. And you want to know if our services is just plainly outside of your means. The cost of an estate plan will be significantly less than the cost of not planning (see Probate Costs), and most people pay less for an estate plan than a family vacation to Disney World on a moderate budget.
Sorry, but for new clients where we didn't prepare the existing trust, it won't be cheaper to update your existing trust vs preparing a new trust.
Why?!
First, as a new client, we will spend a lot of time getting to know you and your family's needs. Clients who previously worked with another estate planning attorney has applauded the time we spend explaining their estate plans to them, time their previous estate planning attorney didn't spend. It's important to us that you understand your plan, and we can't do that in under 1 hour.
Second, often the existing trust has critical flaws that requires substantial revision. Sometimes the trust doesn't say what the client thinks it says or includes an unnecessary bypass trust provision. Sometimes the law changed and the client didn't know about it. Sometimes it was just drafted so poorly that there is no saving the existing trust.
Finally, we can't do a short amendment on a trust that someone else prepared. Our malpractice carrier would have kittens. So, this means we have to do a full reinstatement of your estate plan. Click here for more information on the differences between Reinstatement vs Amendment. It's ultimately cheaper for you to do a reinstatement instead of us billing you hourly to custom draft every provision that needs to be updated.
For our existing or former clients, yes, updates are much cheaper. Why? Because we know your family situation and have your answer file so updates can be done fairly quick.
Yes. You can choose a monthly payment plan that works for you. Some clients pay half upfront, and half at signing. Some clients pay a small portion monthly.
If you choose a payment plan, we can start working on your plan now, but you won't receive drafts or the final documents to sign until all payments are made. So, obviously, if you stretch out your payments, it will take longer to complete. There is a risk that something might happen to you before your plan is complete, and you won't have the protections of your plan.
Yes, we do. It's one of the ways we try to make estate planning more accessible for people. Even though we are a small business, we don't pass the credit card processing fee (which is roughly 3.5%) to you either.
We believe in volunteering, helping our community, and doing pro bono work. We volunteer with the Alzheimer's Association, do pro bono work with local free legal aids such as Senior Adults Legal Assistance (SALA), and actively volunteer with other organizations such as Child Advocates of Silicon Valley and our local neighborhood associations.
We recognize that the need for estate planning is tremendous, especially among seniors. No one wants to pay more than they have to, feel like they are being taken advantaged because they "can afford it," and everyone wants the best value for their money.
We don't like to artificially increase our prices only to then offer a "discount" so clients feel like they are getting a good deal. Our policy is to keep our prices as low as possible for everyone.