"I got a will form online. Can you review it? They said that would be cheaper than having an attorney draft the will."

"I copied my brother’s will. Can you look it over to see if it will work for me? That won’t cost much, will it?"

"I used TurboTax® to do taxes for me and my business. Can you look it over and be sure everything’s okay? And that will be cheaper than having you actually prepare the return, right?"

This writer, like other professionals, gets calls like these regularly. The callers thought that they could save money by getting documents – wills, tax returns, whatever – from someplace, and having them reviewed.

Unfortunately, life does not work that way. Whether reviewing a tax return produced by a tax preparation software package or a will produced by will kit software, the professional is being asked for his or her imprimatur, a seal of approval that will calm the prospective client’s anxieties. That imprimatur carries with it unwaivable liability.

By reviewing and approving the instrument, the professional is representing that it will work – that it will produce the result intended, without creating problems for the client.

That’s precisely the same representation made by a professional to a client when the professional drafts a will or prepares a tax return. It carries the same liability, too. Not only that, but even if the client agrees not to sue the professional for malpractice if the document doesn’t work, the professional can’t enforce that promise.

In the case of a will, the liability of the attorney is even greater after this sort of review than if the attorney had drafted the instrument itself. If an attorney drafts a will, his or her liability is only to the client – the beneficiaries can’t sue if the document doesn’t work. If an attorney only reviews a will, however, the beneficiaries could likely sue the attorney for any loss, real or imagined.

The time spent reviewing a document is nearly the same as the time spent preparing it. In each case, the professional must meet with the client, review the facts and circumstances of the situation and understand the client’s intentions. Then, the professional either reviews or drafts the document. Finally, the professional and the client must meet to go over the document and ensure that everything has been covered adequately and that the client understands what has been drafted.

So, the cost really can’t be the same. It might actually be higher, in the case of a will. But it isn’t reasonable to expect that it would be lower.