Open letter to Will Aid
Will Aid
The Print House
Studio 3 Floor 2
18 Ashwin street
E8 3LD
Dear Sirs
Will Aid Scheme 2015
It is with great regret that BRM Solicitors have decided to withdraw our support for the Will Aid Scheme in 2015.
For many years now, our firm, along with hundreds of others have written wills free of charge for clients during the annual Will Aid month in November.
Solicitors do not receive any fees for the work they do for Will Aid. In return for writing the will, the client is asked to make a charitable donation, which will be distributed to one of the charities represented by the Will Aid Scheme.
The vast majority of clients are very generous, but there are occasions where (often due to the misguided information on certain consumer advice websites) no donation at all is made by the client to the Will Aid charities.
Our firm proudly engages in a large amount of charitable work, donating thousands of pounds and thousands of hours of time every year to help good causes. Indeed, we assist with and run similar charity will initiatives throughout most of each year.
Changes in the legal services market and government reforms have led to many challenges and threats for solicitors. The main one for us is a flood of under-qualified and/or unregulated organisations taking advantage of the changes, and providing clients with inadequate advice and poor value for money.
After our years of supporting Will Aid, we were astounded to learn of their recent marketing campaign in which the public were told they did not need to use a solicitor to write their will.
Such a broad statement in isolation is dangerous and displays a lack of knowledge and devalues the work of solicitors.
Yes it is true (and we tell clients ourselves) they may write their own will. In some cases it is the appropriate thing to do. They do not need a solicitor to do it for them. This logic however may be applied to many things in life.
You do not need to be a qualified electrician to re-wire the electrics of your home, nor do you need to be a qualified mechanic to carry out work on your motor vehicle.
However, allowing an unqualified individual to attempt these activities is not advisable for many very obvious reasons. The same is true of will writing.
Estate planning can be a very complex area of law and great care must be taken when writing a will to ensure a) the will includes everything that it needs to, b) that appropriate regard is given to applicable tax obligations, and c) that it will be legally valid and provable at the appropriate time.
When a solicitor writes a will, the client is not just getting words on paper.
They are benefiting from years of on-going training, practical experience, and knowledge. In firms such as ours with large estate planning teams, we can draw upon decades of specialised experience, and there are few circumstances we have not come across.
We are also able to draw on the expertise of departments covering other areas of law when required by estates with particular complexities.
Solicitors are heavily regulated to ensure that they retain certain standards, and face heavy penalties when they do not.
Those regulations ensure that staff receive on-going training so they are kept up to date with appropriate case law. They make sure that we do not overcharge clients for our services and they make sure that we provide clients with detailed information about the work we are doing for them, how much it will cost them, and what they can do if they are unhappy with our service.
By law, solicitors must have professional indemnity insurance, which will compensate clients on the very rare occasion when something goes wrong.
When a will is self-written, or written by an unregulated organisation, the client does not have the same assurances provided by solicitors’ professional obligations.
If something goes wrong whether due to a simple mistake or negligence, the consequences can be devastating.
We are big supporters of charity Will Schemes because they have been very important in publicizing the virtues of making a Will, and why it is important that it is professionally drafted.
The charitable element, national media coverage, and solicitors’ flexibility on fees for the Will Schemes, encourage people to make a Will who otherwise may not do so.
At the same time, they provide a vital boost to the income of many charities.
It is therefore extremely unfortunate that the recent Will Aid marketing campaign has tainted Will Aid’s previous good work, and has undermined the hard work and generosity of colleagues in the legal profession.
It is for these reasons we have withdrawn our support of Will Aid in 2015, and instead will support a local charity during November in place of Will Aid.
Sadly it is clients and the Will Aid charities who are ultimately affected as more of our colleagues take similar steps as ourselves.
We sincerely hope that Will Aid uses this incident to reflect upon their future business strategies and endeavour to rebuild relationships with solicitors for future years.
Yours faithfully
BRM Solicitors