Legal question. Friend paid $2K for a will. Lawyer screwed it up...

Many states require wills and amendments to them to be witnessed. She should consult another lawyer (and try to get her money back from the first one).

Find a good lawyer who specializes in estate law - it's a rare speciality and one which many "generic" lawyers suck at.

Ie, get a second opinion from an expert.

Not an attorney, but that’s what I’d do in friend’s situation.

Their work is not acceptable. It probably was a staff person who typed up the will who made the error. But the office should correct it with no charge. They should absolutely be made aware of their error.

It states the changes specifically.

If the attorney won't do it or tries to charge you for it, I'd suggest you have another attorney lined up to take the matter over.

It sounds like incompetence to me and who needs this?

Best of luck and oh, btw, I've been there.

setting up a trust that takes care of all your affairs in case you past—you specify who gets what, what happens to your real estate, cars, belongings, whether you want to be kept alive if you're brain dead, all of that. It's more complete than a will.

I live in Las Vegas and there's a document store where you can buy kits with all the docs and you can do it yourself, or set up an appointment with one of their experts and they will interview you and draw it all up officially with state seals and all and you get a bound, hard copy of it for your safe at home. They file it all with the state. I did it a couple of years ago and it only cost $640.00.

And any changes you go back to them and they'll make them for a small fee as they just take out the old page or pages and put in the new ones with the changes.

I was the executrix of my mother's estate.

She had a crooked lawyer that pulled this off.

Being she was dying, I did not care to upset her when she decided to change her will a couple of weeks before she died, hence the reason for the codicil to her will.

I paid for that and got another lawyer to take the case over as soon as she passed.

The reason was because the lawyer was not only crooked but also an idiot and the will he drew up was filled with errors and sent to the wrong people that were named in the will.

So I fired his ass and paid his bill and he got $600 after it closed probate.

This is what my mother wanted; a probated estate so there would be no questions as to who got what.

This is off-topic anyway, I was simply replying to the OP. If the OP cares to continue on with the lawyer they now have, that is up to the OP. I just happen to know what a codicil to a will is (a pain in the butt for the most part).

want to go through probate. It takes months and then there are fees. Well drawn wills and trusts avoid all that.

In my mother's case, the will was in probate for only 6 months as there was not much to it. She wanted everyone to know that fact.

It was the right thing to do given the parties involved and she was fortunate that I was around and able to deal with it.

I dislike lawyers immensely needless to say.

Their attorney fixed it by writing a Scrivener's Affidavit.

You can change them every day if that is what you want. The latest will makes the previous ones invalid. Why not contact the original lawyer, tell him he made a mistake, have him fix it, print out a new corrected will? The new will is going to be the valid one.