Do You Need an Attorney to Set Up a Living Trust?

Technically, you don't need a living trust lawyer to create a valid, effective living trust. No state requires that a trust attorney (or an attorney of any kind) be involved. And you might not want to deal with the hassle and expense of hiring a lawyer. However, there are good reasons (discussed below) to get help from an attorney to set up your living trust, and whether you should hire an attorney or make a DIY trust depends on your preferences and circumstances.

When to Hire a Living Trust Lawyer

In general, the more complicated your situation, the more sense it makes to get help from a trusts attorney. And, generally, if you can afford to hire an attorney to create a living trust, you probably should. The following sections will help you decide whether hiring a lawyer to set up your living trust makes sense for your situation.

Complexity of Your Property

Estate planning can get difficult when you have a lot of property, own many different kinds of property, or have any property that requires complicated planning. So often, what you own determines whether you should hire a trusts attorney. Here are some key issues to consider.

The Value of Your Estate

In theory, the dollar value of your property doesn't need to determine whether a lawyer should draft your living trust. If the circumstances of your estate and your wishes are straightforward, you can make your own living trust even if the value of your entire estate is very large.

How Many Types of Property You Own

If your estate contains just a few simple assets, you can make your own living trust to transfer some or all of those assets to your beneficiaries—even if some are high-value assets. However, the more types of property you own, the more likely you'll want help from an attorney. An attorney will be able to assess how all of those assets fit together in your estate plan and will be able to advise you about which should go into your living trust, which should be distributed by beneficiary designation, and which can pass through probate. In other words, the more there is to know about your property, the more sense it makes to rely on the professional expertise of an attorney.

Legal Complications with Your Property

Certain types of property are so legally complicated that they require help from an attorney, even if they have low value or are your only assets. Such complicated assets include complex or co-owned businesses (because a lawyer needs to assess how your business arrangements affect your personal arrangements), some digital assets like certain cryptocurrencies or NFTs (because they require legal knowledge about emerging or unsettled technologies), and embryos or other reproductive materials (because you need an attorney to stay on top of changing laws). If a transfer of any asset to your beneficiaries requires highly technical or specialized legal knowledge, hire an expert attorney.

Complexity of Your Wishes

How you divide your estate might also affect whether you make your own living trust. If your wishes are straightforward—like giving everything to your spouse or dividing your trust property among your three adult children—then making a trust without hiring a trusts attorney should not be a problem.

However, many gifts are legally complicated. For example:

Gifts in second marriages. If you're married and have children from a subsequent marriage, you might want to do more complex estate planning to ensure you've provided for your spouse and your children.

Conditional gifts. If you want to put restrictions on the gifts you leave through your living trust—like if you want a gift to be used only for buying a house or going to college—you will need help from an attorney to account for all of the "what if" scenarios.

Gifts that affect government benefits. If you want to leave money or gifts to a person who receives government disability benefits, you should not leave property directly to that person through your living trust. Instead, consult a trusts lawyer about your options to protect your child's benefits, which include setting up a "special needs trust."

Many gifts. If you have a long list of beneficiaries and individual gifts, have a trusts attorney create your trust to ensure that no detail is overlooked. Again, the more complicated things get, the better off you'll be with support from an attorney.

Complexity of Your Personal Circumstances

Every family has challenges of some sort, but if your family has complications that might disrupt your estate plan, have a trusts attorney set up your living trust. Here is a non-exhaustive list of some of those challenges:

• You are acrimoniously estranged from a child, parent, or sibling.
• Your spouse and your children do not get along.
• There is animosity among your children.
• You have a biological child who is not known to the rest of your family.
• You are not close with your biological family and rely on professional care for your daily needs.
• You have a close family member whose mental state makes them unpredictable.

In circumstances like these, instead of making a boilerplate living trust yourself, have a trusts attorney create a trust document that specifically addresses the unique concerns of your situation.

Affording Attorney Fees

Having a lawyer set up your living trust will cost between $800 and $3,000, depending on where you live and how complicated your situation is. If you cannot afford to hire an attorney (or if you are in a hurry and cannot wait on the attorney's schedule), then relying on a trustworthy DIY product is a reasonable choice. But if you have any of the complicating factors described above, doing it yourself is a bit risky.

Needing It Quickly

You might need to make your own living trust if you need it soon. Working with a trusts attorney takes time because you have to find and vet the lawyer and then wait on the lawyer's schedule to meet, discuss your needs, draft the trust, review it, and finalize it. With all of the meetings and back and forth, it's typical for the process of setting up a living trust to take a month or more.

In most circumstances, this long lead time is not an issue. After all, most people aren't in a hurry to work on their estate plan because they're making it "just in case" something bad happens or as part of a long-term plan. Indeed, most estate planning documents lie dormant for years before they're needed.

However, in some situations, you might need your estate plan more urgently, like on a certain date or as soon as possible. For example, you might want your estate plan soon if you:

• are about to leave the country
• will be having an emergency surgery
• expect to engage in a life-risking activity, or
• might not have long to live.

In such cases, you might not have time to work with a trusts attorney, and making a living trust yourself might be your best option-- even if it's not ideal or what you would do if you had more time.

Prefering a Trusts Attorney

Some people just want to make their own living trust without a trusts attorney (even if they can afford to hire a lawyer). We understand. Nolo's history and ethos are steeped in the belief that people can do a lot of their own legal work, and we know that paying an attorney doesn't guarantee a better result. We even make and take pride in providing products that help you do your own estate planning. However, we cannot play down the benefit of getting personalized legal advice if you can. Once again, if you can afford to hire an attorney, and if you can vet your candidates to help ensure that you'll end up with a competent lawyer, you probably should.

Others might have the opposite inclination, preferring to hire a lawyer even when DIY estate planning is a safe choice. Of course, this latter course is completely reasonable, despite the downside that it will be more expensive and time-consuming.

Choosing to make your own living trust (or not) is a personal decision only you can make. When thinking about it, take stock of the factors described in this section. If you could still go either way, try weighing the cost of hiring a trusts lawyer against the risk of problems resulting from not getting personalized legal advice.

Best of Both Worlds

Theoretically, you shouldn't have to choose between hiring a lawyer to set up your living trust and doing it yourself. Ideally, you could draft a DIY trust document and bring it to an attorney for review. The attorney would read it, make suggestions, and give it back to you to revise, charging you an hourly fee for the legal advice.

This idea is attractive because it couples the independence and cost-savings of DIY estate planning with the significant benefit of getting personalized advice—the best of both worlds.

In reality, however, having a lawyer fine-tune your DIY trust is rarely an option. In our experience, trusts attorneys are unlikely to review DIY legal work. The reasons for their reluctance vary from being completely reasonable (every client is better off starting with personalized legal advice) to reasonable (lawyers don't want to sign-off on a trust that appears to be okay, but is based on facts not known to the lawyer), to completely unreasonable (estate planning is like brain surgery and should be left only to the experts). If you do find a trusts attorney to review your living trust, prepare to get an earful about how DIY is a terrible idea.

With all of that said, you can try both options, and you can change your mind. If consultation with a trusts attorney makes you realize you're better off setting up your own living trust, the DIY option is there for you. Or, if you start to do it yourself and then realize you're in over your head, more power to you—you can go to an attorney empowered with hard-earned information about making a living trust.

To contact a living trust lawyer for help, try searching for an estate planning attorney using a lawyer directory like Martindale-Avvo.

What We Say to DIY Naysayers