Questions to Ask an Estate Planning Attorney, and What It Costs

What to Ask an Estate Planning Attorney: The Short List

A first meeting with an estate attorney goes best when you arrive with clear goals and a list of what you own, and leave with a written scope and fee. The questions below cover the plan, the people in it, the fee and the upkeep. None of them is a test of the attorney; each one tells you what you are buying.

Source: Long Angle editorial checklist. General education, not legal advice.

If the attorney's answers are specific to your family and the fee is in writing, the meeting did its job. This page is general education, not legal advice, and an attorney licensed in your state is the right source for what applies to you.

What to Bring to the First Meeting

Most of what makes a first meeting productive happens before it. Attorneys spend early sessions gathering facts, and every fact you bring is time you are not billed for and a better question you can ask. A one-page summary usually covers it:

• A balance sheet listing each asset, its approximate value and how it is titled: in your name, jointly, in a trust or in an entity.
• Beneficiary designations on retirement accounts, life insurance and transfer-on-death accounts, since these pass outside the will.
• Existing documents, including any prior will, trust, prenuptial agreement, operating agreements and buy-sell agreements.
• Private holdings such as company equity, fund interests and real estate partnerships, with any transfer restrictions.
• Family facts: children and their ages, any beneficiary with special needs, and states or countries where family members live.
• Your goals, in a sentence or two each: who you want to provide for, when, and what you want to avoid.

Arriving with this also changes the conversation. Instead of asking what a revocable trust is, you can ask whether your company shares can go into one and what that does to any transfer restrictions.

Questions About the Plan Itself

The core decision is how far beyond the basics to go. A basic plan usually means a will, a revocable living trust, powers of attorney and a healthcare directive. A revocable trust avoids probate and keeps the estate private, but it does not reduce estate tax because you still control the assets. Irrevocable trusts, such as spousal lifetime access trusts (SLATs) and grantor retained annuity trusts (GRATs), can move future growth out of the taxable estate, at the cost of control and flexibility.

Useful questions at this stage:

• Does my estate's size and trajectory justify any irrevocable trust now, or should we revisit in a few years?
• If you recommend an irrevocable trust, how much access and control do I keep, and what happens if circumstances change?
• How does this plan hold up if the federal exemption or my state's estate tax changes?
• If I expect a liquidity event, what needs to be in place before it, and what becomes harder after?
• Who can change the trust's terms later, and through what process?

The federal estate and gift tax exemption rose to $15 million per person from January 2026 under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which changes the urgency for many households below that level. Long Angle's guide on when to start estate planning covers timing and sequencing, and the high-net-worth estate planning guide explains how each type of trust works. How much to leave children, and on what schedule, is covered in setting up a trust fund for kids.

Questions About Fees and Scope

Estate attorneys price work in two main ways. In Long Angle's 2025 Professional Services Report (114 member respondents), 57% of clients were billed on a project basis and nearly a third paid hourly. A project fee makes the cost of setup predictable; hourly billing can suit open-ended work such as a business succession plan or ongoing trust administration.

Either way, the scope decides the real cost. Ask the attorney to confirm in writing:

• Which documents are included, and how many rounds of revisions.
• Whether funding the trust is included: retitling accounts, recording deeds, assigning entity interests.
• Whether the fee covers coordination with your CPA and advisor, and any gift tax returns the plan requires.
• What a later amendment or a periodic review costs, and whether there is an ongoing retainer.
• Who on the firm's team will do the drafting and who you will speak with.

Satisfaction with estate attorneys is relatively high among Long Angle members: they rated trust and estate attorneys 7.8 out of 10 in the 2025 report, the highest of the three financial services measured, ahead of wealth managers at 7.2 and CPAs at 7.1. Clear scope at the outset is part of how that relationship starts well.

How Much Estate Planning Costs

At net worth above $2.2M, median household spending on trust and estate attorney services was $5,000 a year in Long Angle's 2025 Professional Services Report (114 member respondents). The report notes that costs vary by region. That figure is annualized spending on the attorney relationship, not a quote for drafting a plan, so ask any attorney you meet to price the initial plan and the annual upkeep as two separate numbers.

What moves the setup price is scope more than the attorney's rate. A basic plan, meaning a will, a revocable living trust, powers of attorney and a healthcare directive, is a defined package that many firms quote as a project. Each irrevocable trust adds drafting, funding work and often a gift tax return, and holdings that are hard to value, such as private company shares or fund interests, can add an appraisal. Ongoing cost depends on how often the plan is reviewed, whether a professional trustee is paid, and how much administration the trusts need each year.

Keeping the plan current is the part most households skip. In Long Angle's 2026 Asset Allocation Report (233 respondents, average net worth about $17M), 73% of those with an estate plan were not updating it, including 31% who knew they needed to. Asking what a review costs at the first meeting makes that step easier to schedule later.

How Much a Trust Costs to Set Up and Maintain

For a household working with an estate attorney, the cost of a trust depends on which kind it is and what it will hold. A revocable living trust is normally drafted as part of the basic plan and priced with it. An irrevocable trust is a separate piece of work with costs that continue after it is signed. The table sets out where the money goes.

Source: Long Angle editorial summary. General education, not legal or tax advice. Ask your attorney and CPA to price each item for your plan.

Irrevocable trusts are a minority choice even in this population. In the 2026 Asset Allocation Report, 24% of respondents had an advanced plan with irrevocable trusts or similar structures, and 58% had a basic plan. The useful question for an attorney is not what a trust costs in general but what this trust will save or protect against what it costs to create and run, and how much access and control it leaves you.

Tax questions that sit alongside a trust, such as gift tax returns and the basis of gifted assets, are worth raising with your CPA as well. Long Angle's guide to high-net-worth accountants covers that side, and how transfer taxes work in estate planning explains the gift and estate tax mechanics.

How Many High-Net-Worth Households Use an Estate Attorney

Just over half of respondents to the 2025 Professional Services Report, 52%, used a trust and estate attorney, and use rose with wealth:

Source: Long Angle 2025 High-Net-Worth Professional Services Report, 114 respondents, all with net worth above $2.2M, fielded August to September 2025. Respondents are Long Angle members who chose to take part, not a representative sample of high-net-worth households. The report does not state the size of each band, so read these as directional.

The report found that age was not the deciding factor; complexity of assets was. If you already have documents, a first meeting about a new trust is a good moment to ask what else in the existing plan is out of date. The maintenance gap is covered in why most high-net-worth estate plans need updating, and the full usage, cost and satisfaction data is in the 2025 High-Net-Worth Professional Services Report.

After the Meeting: Comparing Proposals

If you meet more than one attorney, compare proposals on the same terms: the documents included, the fee and how it is set, who does the work, how funding is handled and the review schedule. A higher fee that includes funding and coordination can cost less in total than a lower one that does not. Ask peers who have been through the same process which questions they wish they had asked; that is often where the most useful answers come from.