I write a Last Will and Testament to suit the individual and do not use canned Will computer forms where the client’s wishes are often made to fit the format. Wills are best suited when made to meet the requirements of the individual rather than trying to impress the client with long pre-made computer generated will forms with pages of wasted, unnecessary language, and additional expenses.
- Decedent’s estates with small estate affidavits,
- Affidavits of heirship,
- Muniment of title,
- Regular independent administration, and
- Dependent administration, depending upon the circumstances involved in each case.
I have the basic Texas Statutory Advance Directives and Powers of Attorney to use. However, I have worked in this area with other very experienced attorneys, medical doctors, and emergency room nurses to be able to provide better documents for the situation when my client’s health may fail with more input from my client’s particular wishes in these times of serious illness. Not everyone has the same health issues nor the same thoughts on serious illnesses so why should they have the same advance directives?
An agent acting under a power of attorney has both obligations and responsibilities and knowing these and accepting them by the agent’s signature is not on the standard form. Copies of all laws on advance directives and powers of attorney are always included in my client’s files when these documents are prepared in my law firm for both present and future references.
If you sign an advance directive using the “standard form” to the hospital and put a “no” treatment under “irreversible conditions”, you may be approving your irreversible conditions as being the cause of your death when if properly treated these irreversible conditions could have turned out to not have been the ultimate cause of your death at all! The “standard” directive to the hospital provides that you are declared “terminal” 6 months before your death, and a “no” under treatment for terminal conditions may be “pulling the plug 6 months before you die” which no one has ever done out of the many custom directives I have prepared for my clients, which allow the client to place his or her own end of treatment as stated in days or even hours before death occurs.