Question : has anyone had legal issues using legalzoom documents in courts and/or various states?
I believe this to be a great service. However, I'm wanting to know if anyone has used these documents in a court system and if they experienced any problems with the documents.
- asked by jbl9950
All Answers: Answer #1I have never used legalzoom, but I do know that there are a lot of these companies that prepare"legal" forms for wills, and trusts, and othersuch legal documents, and have a large potentialto cause legal disputes. Legalzoom is one of thesecompanies. There are problems with suchstandardized forms, particularly in the case ofwills. In most states there are two forms ofwills. One that is formalized (usually where alawyers writes the will for you after you tellthem what you want the will to do, and you sign itin front of witnesses who also sign it), and onethat is halographic (meaning in your ownhandwriting). If you use one of thesestandardized forms but do not go through theformal process that's required in your state, yourwill can be considered invalid (which basicallymeans you died without a will). It will not beconsidered a formalized will. So then in that casethe form is completely useless. Sometimes, thenin some states, the court will consider the will ahalographic will (which doesn't require all thatformalization) But halographic wills, must beentirely in your own hand writing (no typedrewritten words at all). Thus I suppose you couldjust take the form and rewrite the entire documentyourself by hand if you don't want to go throughthe formalized process, but I would not recommendthat. There are still problems with these "form"wills as they are sometimes called, even if youget them formalized, or entirely rewrite them,because they are not specific to your individualneeds. Everyone wants specific things in theirwill, and sometimes you may think that what youradding is for the benefit of your beneficiaries,but that can be a tricky issue of legalinterpretation. Only a lawyer can really help youfigure out what would be best for your particularsituation. They may even be able to recommendthings that you would never have found usinglegalzoom. In the end, using such a program forcomplicated legal documents, particularly wills,is a dangerous proposition, and I would avoid it. [PS Also since the "form" documents are notindividualized they can create, and do create hugelegal battles later on which are extremely costly,especially if they document relate to largeamounts of money, which legal documents often do]
- answered by Slexie
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