Industries / Law firms / Estate planning
Law firms
Content for estate planning law firms
Hudson South writes estate planning content around the family situations clients bring, not only the documents a firm prepares. Clear answers about fit, scope, and the first meeting, in the attorney's own voice, give readers and AI assistants something more specific than a list of documents.
Estate planning clients rarely arrive asking for a document. They arrive with a family: a second marriage, a child who cannot manage money, a parent whose memory is slipping, a business one sibling runs and the others do not. The document follows from the situation, and the situation is what they want the firm to understand first.
Many estate planning sites lead with a list of documents and a package name. This page covers the questions estate planning clients ask before they call, the rules that touch how a firm describes its packages and its expertise, and the gaps that tend to show up on estate planning sites. It sits under our page for law firms.
What estate planning clients ask first
The questions tend to be about fit and consequence. Do I need a trust, or is a will enough for us? What happens if I cannot make decisions for myself? How do we plan when we each have children from earlier marriages? We wrote documents fifteen years ago; are they still any good? What does the first meeting involve, and what should we bring? What does this cost, and what is included?
The answers depend on state law and on the family, which is exactly why a firm's own explanation is worth publishing. Try asking the attorneys a direct question at the next staff meeting: "Which family situation do we explain on almost every consultation, and is it anywhere on our website?" Whatever comes back first is usually the strongest page the firm has not written yet.
Package pricing, scope, and specialist wording
When an estate planning firm sells flat-fee packages, the website creates a scope question. ABA Model Rule 1.5(b) says "the scope of the representation and the basis or rate of the fee and expenses" shall be communicated to the client, "preferably in writing," before or within a reasonable time after the representation starts. The rule prefers writing, which is the engagement letter's job, not the website's. The website shapes what a reader expects before they ever see the letter. A package name is not a scope. A page that says what a package includes, what it leaves out, and what happens when a family's needs go beyond it saves an awkward conversation later.
Expertise wording is the second review item. Model Rule 7.2(c) says a lawyer "shall not state or imply that a lawyer is certified as a specialist in a particular field of law" unless stated conditions are met. Phrases like "estate planning specialist" or "expert in trusts" belong in front of the firm's reviewer, who applies the version of the rule adopted in its own state. States differ here, so we do not pick the wording for the firm.
Common gaps on estate planning sites
The most frequent gap is an answer stripped of its conditions. A sentence such as "a trust avoids probate" may be how an attorney summarizes the idea in conversation, but quoted on its own it drops the conditions that same attorney would attach in a consultation. Our post on keeping conditions attached to estate planning answers covers how to write answers that survive being lifted out of the page.
The second gap is the firm's own approach. Consider a fictional estate planning firm in Virginia that meets with adult children only with the client's permission, and always sees the client alone for part of the first meeting. That practice tells a worried family a great deal, and it is the kind of detail a writer cannot supply. It has to come from the attorneys, approved in writing, before any page describes it.
From the blog
- A “Contact Us” Button Cannot Explain Your Estate Planning Intake
- Who Owns Your Estate Planning Content After It Publishes?
- Where Is the Attorney's Judgment in Your Estate Planning Blog?
- What Does Your Estate Planning Website Mean by “Comprehensive”?
- The Estate Planning Questions a List of Documents Cannot Answer
- Your Estate Planning Website Explains Documents. Does It Explain You?
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Questions we answer
Questions for estate planning firms
Pages written for this segment first, then the industry questions that apply to it as well.
Getting named by AI
- What do estate planning clients ask before they call a firm?
Before calling an estate planning firm, people ask what kind of plan they need, what the fee includes, how many meetings it takes, and whether a spouse or adult child can be involved.
- How do law firms get recommended by ChatGPT and Google's AI?
No law firm can buy or force a recommendation from ChatGPT or Google's AI features.
Pages buyers read first
- What should a practice area page answer before a client calls?
A practice area page should tell a prospective client whether the firm handles their kind of matter, who would work on it, how fees are approached, and what happens on the first call.
- Do law firm city pages still work, and what should they say?
City pages can still help when each one explains a real connection between the firm and that place, such as where clients meet an attorney and which courts the firm appears before.
Proof, reviews and rules
- How should a law firm present case results under advertising rules?
Publish case results only with the context that keeps them from misleading: the kind of matter, the firm's role, what the figure represents, and a statement that results depend on each case's facts.
- Can a law firm use client reviews and testimonials on its website?
A law firm can often use reviews and testimonials, but attorney advertising rules, federal review rules, and confidentiality all limit how.
Questions
Common questions
Should an estate planning site publish package prices?
That is a business and ethics decision for the firm. If prices are published, we write the surrounding page to explain what each package covers and when a family's situation calls for something different, so the number is not standing alone.
Can you write about tax rules for estate planning clients?
Only in general terms, drawn from primary sources read at the time of writing, and in wording the firm's attorneys approve. Tax figures change, so linking to the official source ages better than repeating a dollar amount that will go stale.
How do you write about incapacity and elder planning without sounding alarming?
We work from how the firm's attorneys already talk about it with families, captured in the voice profile. Most attorneys have a calm, specific way of raising the subject in person, and the page should read the same way.
Sources
- Rule 1.5: Fees. American Bar Association. Read 2026-10-15.
- Rule 7.2: Communications Concerning a Lawyer's Services: Specific Rules. American Bar Association. Read 2026-10-15.
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