Most people leave a first consultation having answered the attorney’s questions rather than their own. That’s natural, but it’s worth going in with a list.
The first category is experience. How much of your practice is focused on estate planning and elder law? What do your typical clients look like? If your parents’ situation involves Medicaid, long-term care planning, or signs of cognitive decline, ask directly about that experience. Not every estate planning attorney deals with those areas regularly, and it matters.
The second category is your parents’ specific situation. Given what you’ve just described, what documents do you think we’re going to need? Are there any complications you’d want to look at more carefully before recommending a structure? This is the question that separates attorneys who are actually thinking about your family from those running through a standard checklist. The answer should be specific to what you’ve told them, not a generic recitation of the documents they always produce.
Ask about fees and process. Do you charge flat fees or hourly, and what exactly is included? What does your timeline typically look like from first meeting to signed documents? How do you handle updates when circumstances change? An attorney who is clear about all three of these things is an attorney who runs an organised practice. Vagueness on any of them is worth noting.
Ask how they handle family dynamics. If you’re attending as an adult child, it’s worth understanding how they prefer to manage that. Some attorneys want to meet with the parents separately first and then involve the family. Some are comfortable with everyone in the room from the start. Neither approach is wrong, but knowing how they work helps you prepare, and helps you understand what role you’ll be playing in the process.
One question many families forget to ask: what happens after the documents are signed? A plan that’s never reviewed becomes a plan that no longer fits. Ask whether they conduct periodic reviews and what would prompt them to recommend revisiting the work. Estate planning is not a one-time event, and a good attorney will have a clear answer to this.
There is also a question about who actually does the drafting. In some firms, the partner handles the consultation and the work is then passed to a junior associate or paralegal. That’s not necessarily a problem, but you should know, and you should ask whether the person who understood your family’s situation will have oversight over the final documents.
There’s also a question worth asking yourself before you go in. Do your parents know you’re asking on their behalf, and are they comfortable with it? The attorney’s duty runs to them, not to you. The cleaner that dynamic is from the start, the smoother everything else tends to be.