The Accountability Gap in Estate Planning

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During the last five years, estate planning received a digital makeover. But in the rush to modernize, some of the industry overcorrected — shifting from a disjointed, attorney-dependent process to a digital experience.

In many cases, the resulting process reduced or removed attorney involvement from the equation entirely. For financial advisors, that creates a growing legal and reputational risk: an accountability gap that may not surface until years later, when a client’s plan is tested and fails.

The problem is not digitization itself. Many of these tools deliver real value, from better intake and modeling to clearer client visualization, and for straightforward situations, a DIY approach may be entirely appropriate. The risk arises when convenience begins to substitute for accountable legal judgment in matters that are anything but simple.

We’ve Seen This Before

A decade ago, robo-advisors were supposed to eliminate human advisors. Instead, they became tools advisors used to deliver better service.

Estate-planning technology is at exactly that inflection point. Many platforms that gained traction did so by positioning themselves as alternatives to attorney involvement, not enhancements of it. Now firms, the advisors, and their clients are beginning to reckon with what that means.

Nobody’s Name Is on the Document

The move to digital estate planning fundamentally shifted responsibility. Many platforms state plainly: “We are not attorneys. We do not provide legal advice.” Fair enough — they are technology companies. But advisory firms using these platforms increasingly use similar disclaimers even as advisors market estate-planning services, guide clients through the process, and charge for document input.

From the client’s perspective, their advisor helped create the estate plan from start to finish. But when something goes wrong, who takes accountability?

Not the platform. Not the advisor. Not the firm.

What the Courts Have Said

The answer to accountability is already known. For decades, courts have expanded liability for non-lawyers who provide estate-planning services — from notaries who draft wills to insurance agents managing beneficiary designations to financial advisors involved in legal planning decisions. The through line is simple: When someone holds themselves out as providing a professional service, courts hold them to the professional standard, regardless of their license.

In 2013¹, the Iowa Supreme Court applied this principle directly to a financial advisor who had become deeply involved in a client’s estate plan. The court held that it saw “no reason to treat one kind of agent differently from another” when it came to the duty of care owed to a client’s intended beneficiaries. The Iowa State University Center for Agricultural Law and Taxation put the ruling plainly:

If a person — licensed to practice law or not — sets out to provide legal estate planning services to a client, he will be held to the same professional standard as a practicing attorney, including owing a duty of care to that client’s intended beneficiaries.

Established before the current explosion of digital estate planning, that principle has only grown stronger as more jurisdictions have adopted similar reasoning.

The Coming Wave

Today, the volume of plans produced outside traditional attorney-client relationships has grown dramatically. According to the T3/Inside Information Software Survey, estate-planning software adoption among financial advisors rose from 10.95% in 2022 to 43.28% in 2025, nearly a fourfold increase in three years.

We are likely to see more trust and probate litigation in the next five to fifteen years than ever before. The sheer volume of plans being produced, the complexity of the situations they purport to address, and the absence of professional accountability at every level make it inevitable.

Throwing the Baby Out with the Bathwater

The old model was broken. Advisors lacked visibility, clients waited weeks for basic documents, and the experience varied wildly by attorney and state. The digital transformation of estate planning was necessary.

But something important got lost in the transition: The industry solved the experience problem while removing the professionals whose involvement gives the documents legal weight. The answer was never to eliminate attorneys, but to build a better model — one that lets advisors lead the conversation while attorneys stand behind the documents.

Whose Name Is on Your Client’s Documents?

When an estate plan fails — because a trust is improperly funded, a beneficiary is omitted, or state-specific requirements go unaddressed — families usually discover it only after someone has died. When that happens, clients’ families won’t call the software provider. They will call the advisor who sat across the table and guided the process.

Endnote

^1. https://iowaappeals.com/administrator/intended-beneficiaries-can-sue-financial-advisors-for-failure-to-carry-out-clients-wishes/

Alex Hargrove is the CEO of NetLaw.

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