Estate-planning intake and document assembly workspace

Wealthcounsel pays for itself in the first client. It’s great and the resources it has are incredible for EP. Lots of educational and training content, CLE, forms, guides, all of it. If you’re starting a solo practice, set a budget and run it like a proper business. You need billing and drafting software. Manual processes will screw you over in three months when you have a handful of clients. My biggest regret was not having the right tools in place for the first year of my solo practice and falling so far behind once I got busy that it took me months to catch up and organize. I’m not saying to go balls to the wall, but start with a decent drafting and client management system if you can. Wealthcounsel and leap have a partnership where the pricing isn’t too bad. Clio is decent as well for getting engagement letters out and payments in. Make a budget and that $10k a year tech cost will pay dividends once you start getting busy.

Hey all. I'm a NY attorney getting ready to launch a solo trusts & estates practice. My focus is middle market, meaning regular families and small business owners who need real planning, not UHNW work with dynasty trusts and GST exemption gymnastics (at least not yet). I'm building out my document templates now and trying to pick the right starting point for wills and revocable trusts. What I've found so far: NYSBA's "Estate Planning and Will Drafting in New York" comes with forms. Does anyone actually draft from these? "Drafting New York Wills and Related Documents" (LexisNexis). Same question. Drafting software like WealthCounsel or Interactive Legal. Hard to justify $5k+/year before I have revenue, but I'm open to it if it actually pays for itself. Blumberg forms, which seem fine for a basic will but probably not for trust-based plans. Outsourced drafting (EncorEstate type services) while I ramp up. If you do estate planning in NY (or anywhere, really): what did you start with when you went solo, and what would you do differently? At middle market price points, is drafting software worth it from day one, or is the smarter year-one move a good form book plus building my own templates over time? To be clear, I'm not asking anyone to hand over their precedents. Happy to pay for the right resource. I just don't want to drop serious money on software I don't need yet, or go too cheap on the documents themselves. Thanks in advance.

I am trying to automate processes and reduce paper in my practice. Each client gets like an 14 page engagement packet to sign and an 11-18 page intake form (depending on what they need). Instead of me printing the documents, scanning the documents, then manually entering them, I’d rather have my clients fill it out electronically. I’m not sure what piece of tech is the best way to accomplish this goal. I mostly do estate planning. Any recommendations?