Meet the needs of your clients by helping them with California wills and estates as well as estate planning in California. Educate yourself on the nuances of preparing wills in California and subtleties of California trusts and estates so you can properly prepare legal and binding documents for your customers.

Make sure you know the legal requirements you must meet in order to perform California estate planning and to create the detailed paperwork involved with writing wills and trusts in California. Check the state requirements, as well as any county or city requirements, that may be in place so you don't inadvertently break any guidelines or laws.

1. Know what's required to create binding wills in California.

2. Recognize the differences between California wills and trusts.

3. Educate yourself on California estate planning regulations.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Create a niche business drawing up California wills

Set yourself up for success by focusing your law practice on the creation of California wills. Use prefab templates to make simple wills quickly and easily, thus saving you and your clients time and money.

I recommend: LegalZoom.com provides you with the ability to create California wills using pre crafted templates. Lawgic allows you to craft and create a legal California will using questions and answers to tailor the will to your customers' needs.

Understand the subtleties of California trusts and estates

Create California trusts to prevent the deceased's assets from entering probate. Make sure your clients understand the differences between a will and a trust; help guide them to the legal instrument that best suits their needs.

I recommend: The State Bar of California walks you through the process of determining who needs a living trust and provides you with paperwork for your English and Spanish speaking clients. Fore! Trust Software has California-specific living trust document templates to make it easy for you to meet your clients needs.

Provide your clients with quality estate planning in California

Help your clients with estate planning to ensure their assets are divided according to their wishes and they're protected from the emotional battles that often occur when distraught family members disagree on what should be done. Estate planning allows your client to make all of those decisions for themselves; you draw up the paperwork to make it legally binding.

I recommend: Lawyers.com provides a comprehensive overview of estate planning in California so that you can educate yourself to better aid your clients. National Lawforms has the latest software you need to help your clients with CA estate planning.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Take advantage of free trials of legal software designed to help you with your clients needs for California wills, trusts and estates planning; you can see if it meets your needs before you buy.