Estate Planning Service
The shortcut: You are NOT an estate planning attorney — you are a planning facilitator. Build a real attorney partnership for the document drafting, and own the planning conversations, beneficiary review, and trust-funding follow-up. The non-attorney scope generates 80% of the value at 30% of the price, and it's the only side of this business you can legally run without a JD.
Industry: Finance & Insurance | Investment level: Small — $5,000-$15,000 | Time to launch: 8-14 weeks (attorney partnership + E&O + intake build are the rate-limiters)
Best for: Former financial planners, paralegals, retired insurance agents, or trust officers who can sit with a 65-year-old widow for two hours without rushing her, can read a beneficiary designation form without flinching, and are comfortable saying "that's a legal question — let me get you on a call with our attorney." What you'll likely make: $1,500-$3,000 month 3, $4,000-$7,000 month 6, $7,000-$12,000 month 12. Math is in Section 4.
Market Opportunity
Your client just lost her father. She has the kitchen-table mail. She has the IRA statements. She has the deed to a house with two surviving siblings. What she doesn't have is anyone who can sit with her for two hours and explain what comes next — who gets what, what goes through probate, which account bypasses the will entirely because of a beneficiary form she filled out in 2009. The attorney charges $400/hour and doesn't have time for the conversation. The bank wants to sell her something. You are the person who does the work nobody else will do.
The demand is not a market-research finding. Roughly 60% of American adults have no estate plan, the boomer wealth transfer is the largest in U.S. history, and most general-practice estate attorneys charge $3,500-$7,500 for a basic plan and don't have the patience to run the planning conversations the client needs.
Most clients don't need 20 hours of attorney time. They need 6 hours of planning facilitation, an asset inventory, a beneficiary audit across their 401(k) and life insurance, a healthcare directive conversation with their adult kids, and a 90-day follow-up to make sure the trust got funded. That work is yours. You are the layer between Trust & Will's $399 self-serve software and the $5,000 attorney engagement.
Start with this idea — free signup, no card required.
