Quote:
Originally Posted by mickeyd
I need to redo my will, or rather make a codicil to my current will, and have a few additional estate planning questions that I would like to discuss with an attorney. I have used a local lawyer in the past, but I am now wondering if retirees can have access to military lawyers for this purpose?
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Yes, military retirees can use JAGs for legal services if they have the appointments available, but the last time we did our wills with a JAG we were not happy.
They were not knowledgable or experienced enough to advise a couple like us with our net worth, our rental property, and our military pensions.
The first thing they did was give us two lawyers and put us in separate rooms to make sure there was no domestic abuse/coercion. (This quickly fell apart when they asked my spouse for a list of assets and we'd only brought one copy with us.) At first they were surprised at the size of the assets, but then they quickly became concerned that we didn't have enough assets or were underinsured. Um, guys? Yeah, you're lawyers-- not financial advisors.
We got through the process, and it got done right, but it was clear that we were not in an estate-planning office. Next time we're using a local estate-planning lawyer who's comfortable with revocable living trusts. We're going to get referrals from friends who've done RLTs, and we're going to do interviews.