Customer Reviews

Quicken Lawyer 2003 Wills

QLW is published by Nolo Press, a well established publisher of self-help legal books. When creating a will, the software creates all of the legal language for you - you do not write a single word of legalese - and docs are tailored to each state's requirements. To get information from you and have you make decisions about the content/structure of your documents, QLW follows the typical "interview" format - easy to use and informative along the way. My wife and I each created wills in literally 20 minutes (but you probably have to put a bit of forethought into it, especially if you are married).

PROS:
- Ease of use: idiot-proof interview format
- Legal help: good offline manual, good resources at Nolo website
- Clear execution information: tells you exactly how to execute the will
- Address book: enter a person's info (i.e. you spouse) and don't need to enter again in other parts of same doc
- Ease of use for married people: prepare one spouse's will and QLW has a function to flip the names to create the other spouse's will without starting from scratch

COMPETITORS: Kiplinger and Broderbund also publish estate planning software but I've had a chance to look at them (pre-installed on my computer when I bought it) and I'd stick with Quicken.

GET A LAWYER IF: While QLW functions well as an advisor, guiding you through the specific provisions within a will, it has its limits and is candid enough to admit it during the interviews/tutorials. Get a lawyer for situations like: you expect to owe federal estate taxes ($1.5 million limit in 2003 and going up rapidly), you own a small business or you expect to have a messy family situation upon death (i.e. an ex-spouse or children that don't get along) or live in a community property state.

THINK ABOUT QUICKEN LAWYER PERSONAL: If you have the sense to prepare a will and are in a life situation to start preparing a will, you probably could stand to have a few other basic estate planning documents like a living will/healthcare directive and a power of attorney (especially if you're married). So for a few bucks more, I might check out Quicken Lawyer Personal instead which will do all of this plus prepare a will for you (see my review of Quicken Lawyer Personal for more info).