Regardless of the side that you are on, either developing a will or trying to pursue a claim on an estate, an estate attorney can provide you with sound legal advice that can do you a significant amount of good when it comes to estates.
When a person passes away their will goes through a probate process in which the will is either confirmed and the assets of the deceased liquidated based on the terms of the will, or the will is thrown out and replaced with either a formulaic split based on the rights of various family members or some other factor.
Using an attorney during the will drafting period will sometimes result in advice that will greatly improve the chance that your will be approved during probate and your assets will be divided up based on the terms of the will. The rules that are present in each state vary significantly and a lawyer will have to advice you on the best way to get approval of your will innprobate. Even the signing of the will can be troublesome and the right number of and right witnesses are needed to confirm that a will is valid. An estate lawyer knows and loves these rules and this can go a long way towards getting your will confirmed during the probate process.
If you are contesting a will from the other side of the equation then legal advice can help you as well to identify weaknesses in the will and can help you to obtain a higher percentage of the estate. As noted above there are differences in the rules on a state by state basis and some states have minimum amounts that are owed to spouses while others allow for avoidance of these rules through certain vehicles such as joint bank accounts or life insurance policies. An estate lawyer cons provide legal advice in understanding the local letter of the law and pushing a judge to abide by these laws in your case.
It is therefore essential that an experienced and specialist estate lawyer is retained to provide you with the best chance for a positive outcome in any estate law proceeding. Doing so will often result in an better outcome overall and helps to eliminate a lot of the red tape that is commonly associated with the probate process.