Episode summary

Bill Gross talks with Paul Deloughery, an estate planning and probate litigation attorney in Phoenix, Arizona, about his "Probate Made Simple" approach. Paul says many people believe that if there is a will, it decides who gets what, but that is not always true.

Paul explains that a will controls only probate assets: things the person owned in their own name when they died, such as a car, a house titled to them alone, or a favorite coffee cup. He says this is not an Arizona-versus-California rule but a universal one, and Bill adds that in California, joint tenancy overrides the will.

Probate can get complicated when there are multiple wills, a will and a trust, or a will signed in the last weeks or months of life with a caregiver involved. Paul describes steps that help protect an estate plan, including a psychological or psychiatric evaluation for an older person, and Bill and Paul discuss how a record of trust restatements over time can serve as evidence.

They close on AI. Paul has seen self-represented parties come to probate court emboldened by AI, sometimes right on the law but unaware of the procedure, and both talk about how they use AI tools in their own work.

Key points

  • A will controls only probate assets, the things a person owned in their own name when they died.
  • In California, property held in joint tenancy passes outside the will.
  • Late-life wills, caregiver involvement, and multiple documents are common sources of probate disputes.
  • A psychological or psychiatric evaluation can help defend an older person's estate plan against claims of incapacity or undue influence.
  • AI may get the law right but does not teach court procedure, which trips up self-represented parties.

Questions answered in this episode

Does a will decide who gets everything?

No. Paul Deloughery says a will controls only probate assets, the things the person owned when they died. He calls this a universal rule, not an Arizona or California one. Watch at 4:10

What are probate assets?

Things owned by the person who died in their own name: a car, a house in their name alone, even a favorite coffee cup inherited from a grandparent. Paul says most people's things are probate assets. Watch at 5:40

What makes a probate complicated?

Paul points to situations where a will may not be valid, where there are multiple wills or a will and a trust, or where a will was signed in the last weeks or months of life with a caregiver involved. Watch at 6:33

How can an older person protect their estate plan from a challenge?

One step Paul recommends is a psychological or psychiatric evaluation. If family members later claim the person did not know what they were doing or was unduly influenced, the evaluation is evidence of their capacity. Watch at 15:30

Why restate a trust instead of amending it?

Bill and Paul discuss how restating a trust picks up changes in the law, and how a track record of restatements over the years can serve as evidence of what the person consistently wanted. Watch at 18:04

Can AI help someone handle probate without a lawyer?

Paul has seen self-represented parties come to court emboldened by AI. They might be right on the law, but they do not know the procedure, such as why a matter is set for a hearing 30 days out. Watch at 25:25

Transcript

Transcript generated from YouTube's automatic captions for this episode and lightly cleaned (filler words and repeated words removed, names and web addresses corrected; phone numbers and email addresses read on air are replaced with a placeholder; [unclear] marks words the captions did not capture). It may still contain transcription errors, and speaker labels are not included. Timestamps link to that point in the video, which is the authoritative record.

Editor's note: Paul Deloughery is an attorney in Arizona, not California, and describes Arizona law and practice in this episode. Bill Gross is a California real estate broker, not an attorney. California rules differ in places. This is general information, not legal advice; talk with a lawyer licensed in the state where the property is.

0:03 Welcome to Probate Weekly where my goal when I launched this was to raise the standard of service customers get in probate. Can be a very complicated, very difficult, very stressful situation. Yet, we have a guest today whose website is Probate Made Simple. That's the tagline of his website. Let's see how he makes probate at least simpler, if not simple. Paul Delorie, thank you for joining us today on Probate Weekly.

0:25 Well, good to good to meet you. Good to talk to you, Bill. Now, just a clarify a little bit. Now, you practice law in Arizona. That's right.

0:34 Okay. And so, which is a little easier than California, but still has its own complications. And have you made probate simple, or you making it simpler towards the goal of simple?

0:45 You know what's funny about that? I came up with the idea for the website maybe two or three years ago. And two problems came up. One is I tend to get clients with really crazy, chaotic probate cases and saying, "Hey, make this simple for me."

1:10 Yes. And then the other Well, the other thing that doesn't really help is the acronym for it is PMS. But anyway,

1:19 Yeah. Or maybe it's accurate. So, okay. So, probate in Arizona is different than California, yet there are certain principles that are identical. And so, that's why I really enjoy meeting attorneys of other states as well as we have a national audience to kind of learn about those differences. So, let's talk about what are the most difficult or complicated things that come across in probate? I know you and I spoke previously, one thing we talked about was clients often walked in the door with a with a thing as a will and they think, "Well, gee, now it's simple cuz everything's spelled out here on this piece of paper." What's the gap from that having that piece of paper to actually effectuating it and having all the assets distributed appropriately.

2:02 Yes. So, what it boils down to is understanding some of the basics. A lot of people come to me and it or any probate lawyer and they think they understand everything. There's a will, like they quickly did a little research on the internet, there's a will and that and that says who gets what. That like the internet is full of that concept. If the person died with a will, that says who gets what. But that's not always true. So, what's really needed is to under is to back up it and even lawyers get confused about this. So there's a difference between what's a probate asset and a non-probate asset and then sometimes you can have a trust. So, those are those are three typical buckets that things can go into. And the will a will, if it's probated by the court, controls probate assets. Now, a will just sitting around or a photocopy of a will probably doesn't do anything. It has to be has to be effect it has to be actually accepted by the pro by the probate court. The court has to say this is the valid the decedent's or the deceased person's last will and testament. Then that controls probate assets. And what's a probate asset?

3:32 Probate asset is something Let's Let me stop you just one second before we go on to what probate assets are cuz that's an important distinction. This is I think the biggest misconception that I get from customers. Now, it is true in some states a will is sufficient to distribute assets. Now, I know having done this in probably interviewed attorneys in 40 states that there are a couple states where that's all you need. That's certainly not true in California and it sounds like it's not true in Arizona that you have a will, but the will is kind of like a ticket that gets you into court with perhaps a preset outcome. But in itself, you can't transfer property based on the will, can you?

4:10 Well, again, and I'm pretty sure this is the same in all states. That a will only controls probate assets. So yes, it that it So it really does go back to the distinction. And this is not an Arizona-California thing. This is a universal thing. This is what a will does. A will A will control Like a like my will does not control your car. My will does not control your house or the My will does not control who owns the downtown courthouse, okay? My will only controls things that I own when I die. My will also does not control who gets my life insurance because it has a beneficiary. And my will does not control who gets my Well, for example, if my house if I owned my house in joint tenancy with a with a wife, then the will does not govern that because joint tenancy says who gets the house. So it and I'm pretty sure that's in all states.

5:18 At least here in California for sure that joint tenancy would override the will. Of course, if there's tenants in common, different situation and different you know, depending on the status of the of the marriage and all that, different. But Okay, so now So what we're saying is that the will in of itself doesn't change ownership. It gives advice to the court for those things that may be probated. Talk about what are probate assets and what are not probate assets.

5:40 Yep. Probate assets are things that are owned by the deceased person. And I so you bought a car, you paid some of it off or you know, maybe it's free and clear and you die, well, that's an asset. Your coffee cup, okay? Your favorite coffee cup that you inherited from, I don't know, grandpa or something. That's a probate asset. Like most people's things are probate assets.

6:09 A house if like anything that you owned in your name alone that and it's pretty obvious it'll end up being pretty obvious because in order for you to lay claim to it or to sell it or to transfer title to yourself at some point it there's going to be a roadblock and someone's going to say, "Well, you need to do a probate." So that makes it pretty clear.

6:33 Typically selling property, typically selling houses, access to safe deposit boxes is another one here in California. So okay, but also sometimes there's a will, but the will may or may not be valid, right? Or there might be multiple wills. Or there might be a will and a trust. And so again, just to talk about probate being simple, by its nature, there are these circumstances where wills are drawn in the last week before death or the last 6 months before death with some caregiver and that can be contested. So again, it's not simple, but it seems to me that the goal is to bring it to somebody who's an expert, figure out what it is and try to get it effectuated as quick as you can.

7:14 Yeah, that's what we try to do. So yes, you're right. Okay, so one of the common problems and you guys spoke about this again previously was when property is left to multiple heirs. So like a classic example is mom and dad pass and there's a house and they want it to stay in the family, so they leave a third interest to all three siblings. The three siblings haven't spoke to each other since they last tried to kill each other and they can't stand to other and one's living in the house and he's been abusing mom or dad, or he's been living there for free, and there's resentment. And now you have three people in a house. Talk a bit about the process of resolving that matter that's fair for the estate, which means probably for two-thirds of the heirs, not just the one heir.

7:57 Right. Well, and you'd be shocked at how common this is. A lot of people Well, I it and back up, I feel like I need to kind of explain the history to this. So, from the I don't know, maybe from the 1970s, some probate lawyers or some of the estate planning lawyers started marketing that in order to avoid probate, you can do this trust, and it's a great thing. And so, trust were promoted, and probate was talked about as being a you know, a something to avoid. And generally speaking, it's generally speaking, it's good advice. But I think it's taken to an extreme, and some people Well, for example, in a lot of states, there are things like here in Arizona, we have a beneficiary deed, so you can make a you can make your kids, for example, or heirs, whoever you want, to be the beneficiary of your house upon your death. And in other states, maybe other states don't have that, but if they essentially have the same thing, it's called a life estate deed. Anyway, so the same thing can be done in all states. The issue is, if you do that to more than Well, there's a couple of issues. One is if you if you end up giving it to multiple kids or multiple people, then you're now putting them in a position of co-owning a house together. And you think, "Yay, I avoided probate." but now one of one of your kids wants to move into the house, one of them wants to rent it out, and the other one wants to sell it. And so, it And then the other one it one of them's a friend with a Realtor® and the other and wants to use that you know, the buddy who's a Realtor® to sell it and they can't agree on you know, even if they do agree to sell it, they can't agree on the price and then the roof needs to get fixed and you know, who's supposed to pay for that and does the person who was living there have to pay for rent for the time that

10:01 You know, he or she was living in the house rent-free and all of that stuff. So, it gets it can get really General rule I will say, if that does happen, fix it sooner than later. Absolutely fix it sooner than later. It's kind of like the I don't know, having a having a pain in your stomach. Like, okay, well, I have this pain in my stomach. It doesn't seem so bad, but you know, as the as the years go by, it you eventually find out, oh shoot, that was cancer or something like that. So, and the same thing here. Like it's easier to solve this kind of a problem sooner than later.

10:42 You know, literally my wife was in the hospital because she felt something in her stomach and got taken care of and they discovered different that cancer and had surgeries and so it was life-saving. So, you're you know, I'm very sensitive to the idea, yeah, preparation can in some cases save your life and so and I think that's the probate too, right? It's like anything else in business, planning ahead gives you the opportunity for more success. Doesn't guarantee success, but it gives you more opportunity. One of the other big misconceptions I think of probate is that if you have an estate plan, you will avoid litigation. And while estate planning is great and while estate planning is important and will many times avoid litigation, I think it's more actually it will more likely limit litigation and also So, you get in litigation, give you the opportunity to protect yourself ahead of time. Talk a little bit about the idea and this shock people have having an estate plan. Why are they suing? Why are they objecting? How can they do that? Talk a bit about the challenges of when you do have a good estate plan, how still there's

11:45 Room and opportunity for problems. Well, you just touched on a subject that's near and dear to my heart. And my main website is called Sudden Wealth Protection Law and actually the email the email for me is comes to [email address]. It is a funny name. What's that all about? Well, it's related to what you're talking about. It's related to what happens when what happens when the ne- if there isn't an estate plan or even if there isn't, either way, and the heirs end up not being prepared, they can't communicate with each other, they're fighting, something like that. And what I what I have found this is going to shock you. So, I've been doing probate and trust litigation for years now. Probably a good solid 15 years. And honestly, I don't see any court I don't see any correlation between if a family has an estate plan or if the deceased person has an estate plan or not compared to if there's going to be litigation. Like we have we have an equal number I at any given time. We have we have about 120 cases that we're managing, litigation cases.

13:10 Most you know, a lot a lot of probate trust litigation cases that we're managing. And some of them are over a trust, like interpretation of a trust or the or the trust was done as a result of undue influence or lack of capacity or something like that and or you know, anyway, so the moral of the story is that if someone is trying to plan early, what's really important is communication and trust in the family. Like communication is so key and trying to trying to build trying to build ways for the family to resolve differences and conflicts. And this kind of goes back to older values that have I don't know. I mean I mean to remark on our society today have kind of gone by the wayside a lot. Like families are just not as close as they were when I was growing up anywhere at least with my family. So anyway

14:12 Yeah, and I think there's a couple factors. I think that's one factor is families aren't as close later in life and so it's easier to sue somebody who you don't have close relations with and don't see regularly than it somebody that you're committed to. I think also a lot of them, you know, we have our country has grown so much with so many international immigrants who don't have maybe the same values and that we have here. But I think the biggest thing is just the business of law. Like you put enough money on the table seems to me somebody is going to sue somebody for something. It's just there's just a business model called, oh, there's $10 million. I'm sure I can shake loose $50,000, $100,000 as a profit. Yeah, that's why so to me that's why it's so important to not just have an estate planning have a great estate planning attorney, one who does probate and probate learn and improve and see the new trends. What is being sued? What is successful being sued? Otherwise you're going to get caught behind. So what are what common things in litigation that you see that you go, oh, I wish maybe they had a prior attorney. So let's assume it's not yours. What are the things that your clients have in their estate plan that they're being sued for and you go, oh, they should have done A or they should have done B." What are the most common problems? You mentioned communication I obviously being one of them.

15:30 Something that really helps protect an estate plan. One would be having a having a psychiatric or psychological evaluation. And this is more important for an older person. So, a lot of times what's going to happen is a family member's going to say, "Well, Mom or Dad didn't know what they were doing. They, you know, they didn't agree. They were susceptible to undue influence." That kind of thing. And having a psychologist or like a psychiatrist actually do an evaluation say, "Well, the person, you know, seemed really with it. I talked to them about what they wanted. They didn't seem to be under any pressure from undue influence." Like that goes a long way. Long way. So, that's one good thing that helps. Another thing is actually this might sound self-serving to estate planning attorneys, but redoing your estate plan. Like you might think, "Oh, I did my estate plan 10 years ago and nothing's changed." That's actually a great reason to do it again. Do it again. Like then you restate it. So, it's harder it's harder for someone to knock out an estate plan that was done the same way multiple times that than that you know, than just one. And then the other thing that happens later in life, a lot of older people end up being succumbing to undue influence from a caretaker or something like that. And you're actually helping your family out if you show a history of, you know, of documenting what your wishes were. And then all of a sudden, a week before you died, you did every you totally redid everything to make your caretaker the beneficiary of everything you own. Well, that's going to be way easier for your family to come back and defend, you know, what your historical wishes

17:33 Were that, you know, then if there's nothing documented like that. And the other thing let me just throw this out is I think a lot of people assume that oh, well, my mom always said or dad always said, like that's hearsay. There's no documentation about it and it's informal. Like informal wishes carry no almost no weight in court. So, you need to have it actually formally documented in a will, trust, something like that.

18:04 Interesting. And so, restating I imagine also that the laws in this area change over time over a decade like everything else. And so, while restating it, you also probably pick up some changes that you're now putting in your newer template or your newer base model, if you will, that covers kind of the current law that was changed 2 years ago. So, I imagine that's a I never heard anybody describe the benefit of restating it is creating a track record of restatements that would be evidence of problems. Because commonly we see now is a very common problem where they used to call caregivers, now they're girlfriends who take care of mom and dad and you know, the truth is in some cases they are the only person with human interaction with a person at their last years. And there is some legitimate cases, I'm sure, of those. And there's also I've seen plenty nefarious cases where they're just it was just a money grab and they the elder person was vulnerable and that was that's elder abuse. So, these are things that again you can protect yourself by restating it numerous times and creating in track record. That's really fascinating.

19:12 Yeah. Yeah. I one of the topics that I'd love to talk about because I see I've been studying this really intensely. And I use it as a tool regularly, but I think more you know, I'm a historian, but I kind of feel like I see the history coming is the impact of artificial intelligence and these technology systems that, you know, changed our industry when the internet was formed so dramatically. And now we're at the front end of I think a similar tidal wave change. I'm going to tell you when I dropped out of college, my father, who's an attorney, wanted help installing their first personal computer and I remember buying them a IBM PC and working with word processing and it just revolutionized their practice that they could do things more efficiently. It didn't fire the secretaries. The secretaries got faster typing or they were faster typing, but they got more productive. Talk a bit about AI. I don't know I Like me, I'm sure you get customers walk in and ChatGPT says I need A, B, C, and D, which is interesting. But I think more to the point is that these systems are helping empower the tools that you use as an attorney to be more effective at providing better service for your clients. Talk about where you see AI today in your business, not in the future, but right now. How are you using it? How's it affecting your ability to service your client as an attorney today?

20:30 Well, it's Yeah. Great topic. I have to start with this story. So, I So, I'm in Phoenix, Arizona. It's you know, there's bright sun here and I went to

20:44 Oh, yes. I can attest to that. Yes. I went to ChatGPT and asked okay, how do I how do I grow a tomato plant? How do I grow a tomato plant? And they it gave me the advice that oh, you know, until it gets above 90, it can be in the in the direct sun and I don't like it just made that up.

21:06 And I saw some neighbors with tomato plants that have them in the shade and they're green and full of tomatoes. And meanwhile, mine has brown leaves and it's like struggling. And so I finally, actually this morning, put my tomato plant in the shade. But the point being that ChatGPT sounds very convincing, but it's it makes things up.

21:32 Yeah. And it and we get clients often saying, "Oh, well, I just researched on ChatGPT and this family member did this and that and here's this legal theory that involves a clown and a giraffe and Taiwanese law." Like,

21:55 I'm making that up, but that it's almost as ridiculous as what people come up with. And they're like, "Oh, well, ChatGPT said it, so you know, you know, can you do this?" Like, "Whoa. Well, back up. Tell me what happened. Let's you know, let's talk about it." But to answer your question, it a AI, artificial intelligence, is good at assimilating facts or going through facts and organizing them. It's good at that. It's questionable about applying the facts to the law. It's getting better and better at researching the law. I will have to say back in the '90s when I went to law school, I feel like Westlaw was more precise in terms of what like saying what the law was. A- and it has it has gotten fuzzier over time, which is really strange. But so it in some ways it's made it I think artificial intelligence has made it faster to do legal research, but like faster to get an answer, but it's made it a little bit harder to actually like figure out what the what the true law is about a subject.

23:19 And then applying that to the applying that to the facts like you just Oh my gosh, you just have to be so careful. But it I mean it can be it can be really good. And I think it's getting better. I think it's getting better. So, the interesting thing I was in a program a couple of weeks ago where a couple of judges were talking about AI, you know, and how it's impacting the legal profession everything or the practice of law and everything. And there's kind of a consensus that it's a double-edged sword. Some people are able to come up with the answers and actually represent themselves. If they kind of know how to do it and how to go about it. And some people are just going way off on tangents. And so, the like and it can be I think the skill that judges are developing and all of us lawyers are developing is figuring out the difference between someone who just created something on AI and never proofread it versus someone who you know, may or may not have used AI, but it but actually put thought into it. So, it and you can you can actually tell. You can actually tell just by reading it and the wording of it and you know, how it's organized and everything. So,

24:44 Yeah, I think that as a real estate broker I do a lot of contracts, a lot of reports, some of which I really need to know line by line. And that's where AI use is dangerous because if I miss one contingency, one item, it could it could you know, bind my client and cause a problem. Now, the documents they don't really need to know so well, but or the other party gives me a summary. And so, I can put that into the AI and say, "Summarize this document." Look at those two summaries match. If the real If the other agents give me this list of problems, and the AI comes back a list, now I'm going to go back to report and compare. And so, I think there's certainly there's uses for this. I think we're The challenge is we're still trying to find our way to manage the AI instead of the AI managing us.

25:25 Sure. And I think your point, I've seen self-represented pro per parties emboldened by AI going to court, and the thing they don't They might be even right on the law, but they don't know the procedure, right? So, they didn't study that part. And so, they're going to probate court, and they're arguing with the judge about the judge saying, "Well, we you know, we're going to schedule this for 30 days." "Well, no, I want to today." Well, yeah, no, we don't That's just not how it works. And so, they didn't ask the ChatGPT, "What's the result of this hearing supposed to look like?" So, again, I don't want to say I mean, you know, talk a bit about how you how do you mind sharing how do you use it? I mean, you have a pretty good-sized practice. You know, you have you said 100 something litigation cases going on. I don't know how many Let's say pleadings you have written, how many you're ministering in probate cases, as well you're ministering. Talk a bit about how do you personally use it? I mean, what's your form if you To the extent you're allowed to share, what do you feel comfortable sharing as how do you use it on a kind of day-to-day basis?

26:23 Well, let's see. So, on Yeah, on a day-to-day basis, we it seems to be pretty good at coming up with a list of possible legal theories. Like it you know, here's a set of facts. What are what are some possible legal theory How can we solve this problem? It is pretty good at that. It's good at coming up with responses and analyzing things. And I guess actually here, let me get into the weeds if you want to. Like is

27:06 Yeah. Like you're talking about using AI, but real specifically, like there are all kinds of different tools. It's like there's a toolbox. So what is it? Google Notebook LM is pretty good for Yeah.

27:26 Because it really helps you keep privacy with your client, right? Cuz it's all in that one spot. It's only drawing information on the notebook. And I'm sure there's other products like that in the other models as well, but the Google has really set that up, I think, for businesses like you yours and mine, where I can put all the information on one property in one notebook, and then ask questions about that property and get information on that property.

27:48 Right. Yeah, so it's really good at analyzing a large amount of data. And then we have we have our own you know, AI that we use as a law firm that's good at well, you can't import as much data into it, but it is better at like the legal end of it end of things. And then And then like just for I don't know. Sometimes we Sometimes use Chat GPT like for real simple things. But it Yeah, anyway. Like there's it's a it's an evolving thing. It's absolutely an evolving thing. It's kind of mind-boggling.

28:28 The thing that I'm surprised at in my industry, and I think it's true with yours, too, is it seems that the pace of adoption of AI into the tools we use already seems really slow. Like they all have some sort of a chat thing you can ask questions to, but it doesn't have anywhere near the depth or the technical abilities that the in case I use Gemini as my primary for business then have the ability to do some of the same things it does you know uploading documents analyzing documents giving a list of things that the chat on my CRM product or my real estate document product just doesn't have the same breath and abilities and I'm just surprised that I've been saying this now for about six months and I imagine these companies like I don't know if you use Lomax or Cleo or practice Panther or some of the different softwares I've they installing AI in there in a in a useful way or is it really more just window dressing and they're using to sell subscriptions?

29:22 Well, yeah so we have the AI version for Cleo and it works pretty well. I think something and I'm not an expert at this but I saw recently that Claude I think only like the actual artificial intelligence in Claude is only 1 and 1/2% of what's actually working and the rest of it is other rules that are created around it. So I think that's partly what's going on. So like try trying to try like it's this I think artificial intelligence it my sense of it and I'm not an expert but my sense is it's kind of this wild thing and so in order to like have it be useful you keep you have to keep building more and more rules around it. So I think that's maybe why it's taking slower to develop or you know something like that cuz I mean people are talking about how it's going to you know take over the world and I think it's well I think it's a ways away from that but

30:29 Yeah. Yeah. You know and little simple things in real estate like I can I can ask chat GPT or Gemini or I've used other ones and say you know pull the estimate from Zillow Redfin and the other three or four other sites on this property and they come back and they're clearly wrong. I look at what the heck is this? And when I asked the asked the GPT why is it wrong? It says, well, I don't have access to real time on the browsers because they block AI systems. And so I gave you the last one I had which was whatever day it was 6 months ago, a year ago. But it didn't tell me that in the answer. In the answer it said this at you. So these are things that we still find are always a way. I think if you're coding it's one thing. If you're if you're in that in the business, but I still think for practice of law it's a great tool, but still ways away from destroying your business. If I was running a software company in law, I think I'd be very concerned about it. But for us I'd like to think we're going to be the beneficiaries of better technology and better tools to better serve our clients because that's my focus. Well, look, this is a little off a little bit. Now, so just to wrap up maybe on that topic and then general because we're kind of at the end of our time. So how do you implement this on a personal Do you spend this amount of time regularly? Do you just try to play with it as a hobby at some point during the day? Obviously your time is valuable, so you can't waste time with it. It can become a hobby for you. How do you see yourself learning these skills and then implementing them into your business personally?

31:54 Oh, I use them all the time. I use them all the time. And we So along the spirit of Probate Made Simple, we're trying to be on the cutting edge of implementing new ways to be efficient and doing things the right way and all and all of that stuff. So yes, we're Well, the newest thing that we're about to do is implement some AI employees. So I haven't quite pulled the trigger on that, but the idea like in the future people are going to be managing AI employees. So instead of like Well, I Well, I was trying to imagine like how that how that would work for you. For my paralegals, how it's going to work. So, instead of my paralegals going and you know, here's all these things you know, I have 30 cases to manage and this and that and I have a disclosure statement and this thing's due to the court this and all that stuff. They're going to have employees. One is going to be tracking deadlines. One is going to be on like helping communicate with the client and different other things and then they're going to be managing that and making sure that the things get done and then you know, like proofreading the email to the client before you know, before it actually goes out and making sure that AI hasn't made a mistake about calendars or deadlines or something like that and so it's good it's going to be a lot more powerful. I think we're actually like people are going to be able to do a better job a more thorough better job.

33:32 It's just going to be a different focus. Like in instead of instead of the paralegal doing all the work, they're going to be making sure that the systems are working.

33:41 I would think that for people looking for simpler probate, low-cost perhaps as well. You know, those look for those two things in common that you can do an intake with AI now with a voice that sounds so close to human that as long as you know it's the case, right? I think that's part of it. So, okay, we have our intake assistant, you know, Johnny who's really an AI, but she's really good at getting this information. Make an appointment with Johnny and Johnny asks the questions and puts them into the form. I can almost see you know, the 80% of the intake being done and then the real person coming in saying, "Okay, this is what I have, but I have these questions additionally." Is that where we're headed, do you think?

34:17 Yeah, I'm going to push back on that. I think people crave human connection. And so I don't see even if that is possible, I don't see us actually doing that anytime soon. Like here's how we actually do it. So, we have a phone system where we use Well, it records the calls and automatically transcribes them. And so we're able like it helps us in terms of accuracy because it's like anyone of us on the team can have a call with the client and ask them questions and then now we have those answers. And then we can copy and paste that into our you know, whatever the program is to Clio in the in our case. And it's a well, it's actually in Clio already, but we transfer it to a different part of the program and then like analyze, you know, how can we use this to draft this document? How you know, look at this transcript of my call with my client and help me write a letter to the opposing attorney, for example. And it's so that but then I proofread the letter and make sure that it isn't just, you know, gobbly but so I guess getting back to it, yeah, having a having a AI voice or something like that, I don't think I ever want to do that. Maybe that's just my generation, but I truly think that people are always going to crave actual real human interaction.

35:54 Huh? Okay, there you go. Yeah. Paul Deloughery, attorney probate attorney and estate planning attorney in Phoenix, Arizona, Valley of the Sun. Get you everything there. It is hot.

36:07 It is hot. And let me tell you otherwise. Don't think that my best friend moved to Scottsdale. He would tell me, "It's not really that hot." No. I've been there numerous times. It is that hot. It's every bit that every bit that hot.

36:16 Yeah. For more information from him at probatemadesimpleonline website probate that's probatemadesimple.com. Phone number [phone number]. Paul, thank you so much for spending time with us today and helping us learn more about probate can see down the future where business is and I really appreciate maybe we'll circle back in a few months and see maybe how what progress has been made.

36:36 Sounds good. Thanks, Bill. It's been a pleasure. Thank you. And for the rest of this Probate Weekly, we had a chance today to talk to an attorney in Arizona, but I think the principles are the same and that's why I really enjoy these opportunities. Hope you did, too. Let me know your comments. Like it, don't like it, suggestions. If I can help in any way, please reach out. I'm available on social media at Bogos Probate. And as always, make today a blessed day up.

More Probate Weekly episodes

Related

Educational media, not legal advice. Guest views are their own. Hosted by Bill Gross, The LA Probate Expert, a licensed California real estate broker (DRE #01022275) brokered by eXp Realty of California, Inc. (DRE #01878277). Bill is not an attorney and is not a Probate Referee.

Schedule Consultation