Welcome to the ShTexaslawyer.com Blog

Although a last will and testament seems like an odd financial tool, it is one way to protect your assets and your family. A combination of financial planning, trusts and directions given in your will can save estate taxes for your heirs. A will also has the ability to help control the costs of wrapping up your estate.

With the stock market having gone through a tumultuous time, many people have pulled their money out and are looking at ways to protect what they still have. Assets without designated beneficiaries will fall into your general estate upon your death. Without a will, those assets will be divided equally among your living heirs. If these assets total to whatever the estate tax limit is at the time of your death, your loved ones will lose some of their inheritance.

If you have taken assets out of investments that were once covered by beneficiary instructions, and do not have a will, I highly recommend consulting with a lawyer and/or a financial planner.

Checking the statistics, it seems a lot of folks are coming by the blog looking for answers. The search strings are close to content I've already developed, but not always a direct match. If you have come to this site looking for answers to a specific question, and didn't find what you were looking for, send me an email ( showard@shtexaslawyer.com), give me a call (817-803-3898) or make a comment. I will get to you as soon as I can.

NOTE: IF YOUR QUESTION IS SENSITIVE IN NATURE, AND NOT GENERAL, DO NOT USE A COMMENT TO THIS BLOG. CALL OR WRITE, SO WE CAN PROTECT YOUR PRIVACY.

I have seriously considered setting up a section of the main site (http://www.shtexaslawyer.com) to provide online will services. My plan would be to create a convenient way for clients to select what types of documents they need, to electronically sign a contract, to pay via secure transaction, and then to fill out a form with the standard questions on s secure site. Them within 24 hours I would personally call the client, go over their information, be sure we have discussed their needs thoroughly, and prepare a will that would be the same if they had come into my office in person. The will could then be delivered with a short DVD going over the closing process of signing the will.

My plan would be to do more than the non-lawyer document preparation services. Many of these service provide only a generic will, they cannot and do not provide advice because they are not lawyers. Some site only deliver a Microsoft Word Macro to create the will, leaving all the work up to the client.

Such services are just plain wrong. They mislead people to thinking they have received the same quality product they would get if they consulted with an attorney. I do not doubt that there are very educated people who could prepare their own will without a law license. However, the larger majority need assistance to make sure they cover all issues and eventualities, and even the rather simple but crucially important rules about the signing of the will.

I hope to have this service online very soon. If you are interested, or wish to be kept update, please let me know.

People have been asking for it, and it is almost here. Hopefully by the end of this week I will be able to make public a new section of the main site dedicated to allowing electronically signed contracts, electronic payments, and electronic forms. The goal IS NOT to de-personalize the services I offer, but to make these services more accessible to clients with tight schedules or with limited cash flow.

Through the new sections of the site, payments will be allowed by all major credit cards, bank transfers or even Paypal, via a secure Paypal transaction. I started with Paypal due to the ease of set-up. YOU WILL NOT NEED A PAYPAL ACCOUNT TO USE THIS SERVICE. Paypal is merely the clearing house to grant me access to using credit services.

My goal is to be able to allow clients to make payments to their retainer fees without the need of visiting me or mailing a check. For some services such as wills, I plan to have the ability to purchase the will package that fits your needs, to sign an electronic contract and make your payment. Then, I can contact you directly to go over the information provided, to customize a will solution to fit your specific needs, and produce a final executable document to you in record time.

Looking around, I don't see a lot of lawyers taking advantage of the online tools most of us have grown accustomed to. But, lawyers are a traditionally slow bunch to change. I can remember working in an office without any internet and no inner-office network at all, in the 90's. The next place I went to was still using DOS based tools when the Y2K scare was about to hit. So, I guess I can understand why none of them have jumped to provide online access to services.