Do you need to have a will?

Attorney Tom Olsen: Chrissy, when we do a will for people or people often ask us, "Tom, do I need to have a will," well, the first thing we remind them of is that when we do a will for people, we do a package of documents. We do the will itself. We do a living will declaration where you ask that you not be kept alive by machines. We do a health care surrogate, so if you're not able to your appointing somebody to decide what doctors, what hospitals, what medications, and we do a financial power of attorney so if you're not able to, you're appointing somebody to pay your bills and manage your affairs for you while you're alive.

The point about that is, is a will you're appointing somebody to take care of business when you pass away, these other documents are used during your lifetime.

Attorney Chris Merrill: Exactly. I know that, Tom, you're right, when people say about a will, they are surprised when our response is well we need to do the package of the four documents that you just mentioned and why? The first are responses because it is not just about when you pass away but it's our responsibility to help you to make sure that it's who's going to take care of business if you're alive but incapacitated as well as when you pass away.

Attorney Tom Olsen: Exactly. All very important documents and part of the package that we do for people, and by the way, when we do them, we all put them in a notebook nice and organized for you. We scan everything for our file. We put a scanned copy of everything on a thumb drive so it's very easy for you to share copies with people, Crystal will say it again that over the years we've often we've met people that had wills done years ago by another attorney and he or she kept the originals. I never understood that thinking of the attorney who would keep the originals but, folks, when you sign your original document you're taking them with you in this notebook that we're going to give you.

Attorney Chris Merrill: That's the way it should be.

Attorney Tom Olsen: Yes, we think so, yes. We'd love to assist you, remember we offer a free initial consult to talk about your estate planning. Tradition, we do that in person but these days we're doing it more and more over the phone. Call the Olsen Law Group next week to schedule a free initial consult talk about your estate planning or just reach out to us through our website, Olsen Law Group and from there you can text us, you can email us, you can call us all through olsenlawgroup.com