This page is written for you, the family we are working with, rather than for other lawyers. Our office now uses a software assistant, which we call an agent, for some of the paperwork around your estate plan. You are entitled to know exactly what that means, so here it is in plain language, and you are welcome to ask us anything it leaves out.
What the agent is, and what it is not
The agent is a program built for our office by PRESWERX, a technology company that is not a law firm. It does one narrow kind of work: it organizes. It turns the answers on your planning questionnaire into a tidy summary, fills the blanks in our own checklists, and prepares a first list of the papers we will want to see. It does not give advice, it does not choose between options for you, and it does not decide anything about your plan.
What it helps with
Most of the help is quiet and clerical. The agent can sort the information you gave us into the order our attorneys work in, point out a question on your questionnaire that was left blank, assemble a signing-day checklist, and draft a reminder for us to look at your plan again after a year has passed. Think of it as a very organized assistant who prepares the folder, and who is never the person who explains it to you.
Who looks at its work
Every page the agent prepares goes to a person in our office before it goes anywhere else. Usually that is the attorney handling your matter, or a paralegal working under that attorney's supervision. They read it, correct it, and decide whether it is used. Nothing the agent writes is sent to you, to a bank, or to a court on its own. If you receive a letter from us, someone here chose to send it.
Decisions that stay with people
Who receives what, how a trust is set up, what a document should say, which dates matter and when something is due: those questions are answered by your attorney, using professional judgment and the facts of your own family. The agent has no role in them. If it ever prepares a draft that touches one of these points, our staff treat that draft as a rough starting sheet and check it against the real records.
What it sees, and what it does not
We give the agent only the material needed for the task at hand. We have asked that it not be shown more than that, and our staff decide what goes in. Ask us if you would like to know which of your papers were used for a given task. If you would rather we handle some part of your file entirely by hand, tell us, and we will talk through how.
How a typical task moves through our office
Here is an ordinary example, described in general terms. After you return your planning questionnaire, the agent produces a one-page summary of what you wrote and a list of any gaps. A paralegal reads that summary beside your original answers, fixes anything the agent got wrong, and passes the cleaned version to the attorney. The attorney then meets with you. The agent was involved in the first step only, and two people have looked at its work before you hear a word about it.
What happens when the agent gets something wrong
Software makes mistakes, and so do people, which is why we built the review step in. An agent can misread a handwritten note, mix up two similar names, or fill a blank with something that sounds plausible but is not what you said. Our staff compare its drafts with your actual papers, and a draft that does not match is corrected or thrown away. If you ever spot an error in something we send you, tell us right away so we can trace how it happened and fix the process.
Your own choices
This is your file and your family. You may ask us to stop using the agent on any part of it, and we will honor that request and do the work by hand. You may also ask for a plain explanation of any page we send you, and we will give it in person or by phone. Declining the agent does not change how we treat you or the care your matter receives.
Questions you may want to ask us
You are free to ask any of the following at your next meeting, and we will answer them directly.
- Which parts of my file were prepared with the agent's help?
- Who in the office reviewed that work before it reached me?
- Can this part of my matter be done without the agent?
- Where are my original documents kept, and who is allowed to open that record?
We use this tool so that more of our time goes to listening to you and less to retyping forms. If anything on this page leaves you unsure, call the office and ask for the attorney on your matter. Their answer comes first, and the software comes second.