Enrico Linscheer, LegalGen’s creator and an experienced software developer decided that it would be prudent to have his affairs in order for his growing family.  Based in Dallas, TX, Enrico sought out an experienced Estate Planning Attorney and a connection was made with Carol Butrus through his involvement in the BNI (Business Network International – A Referral Based Networking Group). 

Enrico sat down with Carol, and she did a great job of explaining all of the different options available to him; the documents he should have as a minimum, as well as expanded options for a growing family and career.  In agreement with Carol, Enrico decided to start with the basic documents, a Last Will & Testament, Healthcare and Durable POA’s as well as a few other ancillary documents.  When the conversation turned to price, Enrico was a little taken aback and told Carol that he’d have to think about it.  Carol, after hearing this same statement numerous times from a number of potential clients, engaged Enrico as to why he had to think about it.  This conversation proved to be insightful for both Enrico and Carol.

Enrico was able to “get a peak behind the curtain” of the Estate Planning Community, and really learn the process.  He found that:

•           The intake process was a bit archaic in that most Attorney’s sent out a Word document or PDF for a client to fill out
•           The actual documents are really just templates that have been changed and perfected by the Attorney over the years
•           The Attorney, or a staff member, would take the data collected from the intake form and spend a considerable amount of time using a feature such as “find & replace” to manually input the information into these standard document templates
•           The margins were very slim for the Attorney, as by the time they added up Attorney & staff hours, the billable hours surpassed the quoted document package
•           The technology available to Estate Planning Attorney’s has not kept pace with the technology available today, the “automation” touted in the solutions available at that time (and today) still required a doubling of efforts and a very manual, time consuming data entry process

With much discussion, Enrico proposed a solution to Carol, harnessing the technology of today, with the following goals in mind:

1. Give the client a great user experience
2. Drastically reduce the amount of Attorney/Paralegal/Staff time per package
3. Provide the documents to the clients in a timelier manner, using the Attorney’s own, proprietary documents.

To accomplish these goals, LegalGen was created, and from a high level, provides:

• An easy to use, intuitive, online intake form for the client
• Automated document mapping that takes the client responses and automatically places them into the Attorney’s documents, in the correct section(s), with the correct formatting
• Attorney dashboard, where the Attorney or staff member downloads the documents, does a simply review and arranges for signature