Wills instruction resources

Many of the claims LPLC sees in the wills and estate area of law relate to mistakes in the drafting of wills where the client’s instructions are not accurately reflected in the will. Having good precedent file notes and instruction records means the client’s details and instructions can be accurately recorded and relevant information is not missed. This also makes it easier to subsequently compare the effect of the written will with the client’s instructions and avoid mistakes. The LPLC will instruction file note and will instruction form have been designed to address many of the errors we see in the claims.

The Will instructions file note template has been designed for completion by practitioners when taking instructions from clients about their will.

The Will instructions file note can also be used by practitioners in conjunction with the Preparing your will — instructions for your legal practitioner template below.

The Preparing your will — instructions for your legal practitioner template has been designed for practitioners to provide to their clients for completion prior to their first meeting with their practitioner to take instructions. It includes some basic explanations about why the information being collected is relevant to the process. The document is also for practitioners who want to ask the questions of their client and complete the template themselves.

It would be impossible to design these resources as one-size-fits-all, so they have been deliberately created as base documents from which practitioners/legal practices can then adapt them to their circumstances and needs.

The documents have been designed and provided here in Microsoft word as templates in a .dotx file format. The documents utilise fillable fields so they can be filled out electronically and then saved as regular word files (.docx) when complete. They can also be amended and tailored to suit practitioner needs and can include the brand identity (colour, logo etc) of the legal practice.

Some users may want to combine the instruction template and file note, or change the order of items, or use them as a basis to update or create their own tailored instruction template or a checklist.

If practitioners and/or clients wish to fill the documents in manually, they can print them out but may need to create further space at some points in the document to accommodate certain information.

Any changes to the base documents provided here may result in and necessitate formatting changes/fixes. In order to make the best use of these base documents, we recommend that any modifications be done by someone with an understanding of Microsoft word and the template format.