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 The rock star died on April 21 without a known will. Since then,
Nolo.com (http://nolo.com), a legal information site, saw a 24
percent spike in sales for its downloadable WillMaker service, 42
percent for its Nolo Online Will and 41 percent for its Nolo Online
Living Trust service.
LegalZoom.com (http://legalzoom.com) experienced a 46 percent
increase in overall estate planning volume after April 21, plus a 20
percent increase in requests for attorney consultations.
RocketLawyer (http://rocketlawyer.com) saw a 57 percent increase
estate planning activity.
Meanwhile, USLegalWills.com (http://uslegalwills.com) posted a 61
percent surge in the number of people completing a will in the three
week's after Prince's death.
Prince's relatives, meanwhile, face the expensive and time-consuming
process of a state-ordered probate.
Every time a high-profile celebrity dies without a will, estate
lawyers say they see a flurry of planning discussions. But the truth
is that personal life events typically motivate most people to draft
a will, says estate and trust attorney Brian Raftery at Herrick,
Feinstein LLP in New York.
Young parents name guardians, older couples plan for passing their
wealth to children or to charity, or people hear about somebody
else's bad experience with an inheritance and decide to plan
smarter. Even so, only 67 percent of Americans over 55 have any sort
of will, with the number plummeting to 22 percent for adults under
55, according to FindLaw, a unit of Thomson Reuters.
"People come because they want to avoid pain; we do things out of
fear," says Brooke Borg, an attorney with her own firm in Las Vegas,
Nevada.
Starting the estate-planning process online is one baby step to
getting the required paperwork in order.
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The legal costs do not have to be prohibitive, says Stacey Decker, a financial
adviser for Merrill Edge in Oak Lawn, Illinois. An estate plan, including a
trust, healthcare proxy forms and power of attorney designations, can run as low
as $2,000.
The process can take as little as a day. Liz Messianu, an attorney Lubell Rosen
in Miami, Florida, drafted a will in one day for a traveling international
client who was worried in the wake of Prince's death. Most wills take a few
weeks to complete.
Plenty of lawyers will do a free consultation to determine your needs and then
can estimate the price. A simple will without a trust can cost as little as
$400, says Messianu.
The cost differential of drafting a will versus going through probate can be
staggering. "If I told you, you'd fall off your chair," adds Messianu, who has
seen probate costs balloon past $50,000 for an estate of $1 million.
(Editing by Lauren Young and Cynthia Osterman)
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