Lebovitz & Lebovitz, P.A. · Pittsburgh · Since 1933
If you had a lawyer in the family, here is what they would tell you to do before you need one. Most of it takes an afternoon. Almost nobody does it until something goes wrong.
This is the list.
About the Firm · Stephen H. Lebovitz
If You Had a Lawyer in the Family: The Legal Checklist Most People Never Complete
People who grow up with a lawyer in the family get advice the rest of the world pays for later. Not because the law is secret but because nobody thinks to ask until something goes wrong. This is what I tell my own family. Most of it takes an afternoon to address. Almost nobody does it until they have to.
Start With Three Documents. These Are Not Optional.
A will, a durable power of attorney, and a healthcare directive. Without all three, the people who need to act on your behalf may find they have no legal authority to do so.
Every Pennsylvania adult needs three documents regardless of age, wealth, or family situation. A will. A durable power of attorney. A healthcare power of attorney. These are not advanced planning tools for wealthy families. They are the baseline for everyone.
A will controls who receives your assets and who manages your estate. Without one, Pennsylvania decides — under intestate succession rules that follow a fixed order by relationship and have no knowledge of what you actually wanted. A durable power of attorney authorizes someone to manage your financial and legal affairs if you become incapacitated. Without one, your family may need to go to court to appoint a guardian — an expensive, time-consuming process that can be avoided entirely with a one-page document. A healthcare power of attorney designates someone to make medical decisions when you cannot communicate. Without one, medical providers follow a statutory hierarchy that may not reflect your actual wishes or your actual relationships.
These three documents can be executed in a single appointment. The consequences of not having them — contested guardianship proceedings, family conflict over medical decisions, assets passing to the wrong people — cost far more than the documents themselves. Do them first. Do them now. Update them when your life changes.
Check Your Beneficiary Designations. They Override Your Will.
The account goes to whoever is named on the form. The will does not change that.
Most people have not looked at their beneficiary designations since they opened their retirement account, their life insurance policy, or their bank account. Most people do not realize that those designations override whatever their will says. A will that leaves everything to your current spouse means nothing if your 401k still names your ex-spouse as beneficiary. The account goes to the ex. The will does not change that.
Pull out every financial account, retirement account, life insurance policy, and bank account you own. Look at who is named as beneficiary. Ask yourself whether that person is still the person you would choose today. If the answer is no, or if you cannot remember who you named, update the designation now. This takes minutes and it is one of the most consequential things most people never do.
Also check whether you have named a contingent beneficiary — the person who receives the account if the primary beneficiary dies before you. An account with no living beneficiary at the time of death passes through your estate, goes through probate, and may not reach the people you intended. A current primary and contingent beneficiary on every account closes that gap entirely.
Know What You Own and How You Own It.
Title determines what happens to property at death. The house looks the same. The legal result is completely different.
Title determines what happens to property at death. A house held in joint tenancy with right of survivorship passes automatically to the surviving owner outside of probate. The same house held as tenants in common passes through the estate of each owner according to their will or the intestate succession rules. The house looks the same. The legal result at death is completely different.
Pull out the deed to your home. Look at how title is held. If you are married and the deed names you alone, your spouse may not automatically inherit the property at your death. If the deed names you and someone else as tenants in common, that person owns a share of your home right now and their share will pass to their heirs at their death, not back to you. Understanding what you own and how you own it is the foundation of any estate plan. It is also the most commonly overlooked item on the checklist.
Have the Right Insurance. Not the Cheapest Insurance.
The question is whether you have actually modeled the downside or decided not to think about it.
Review your liability coverage. A standard homeowner’s policy typically carries $100,000 or $300,000 in personal liability coverage. An umbrella policy adds $1,000,000 or more on top of that for a relatively small annual premium. If you own rental property, have a swimming pool, employ household workers, or have teenage drivers, your baseline liability exposure is higher than a standard policy was designed to cover.
Review your auto liability limits. Pennsylvania minimum coverage is $15,000 per person. A serious accident can produce a claim that exceeds that amount many times over. The difference between minimum coverage and adequate coverage in premium terms is often modest. The difference in financial exposure is not. Also check whether you have uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage on your auto policy. If you are hit by a driver with no insurance or inadequate insurance, your own UM/UIM coverage is what stands between you and absorbing the loss personally.
Review your disability coverage. Most people insure their homes, their cars, and their lives. Fewer insure their income. A serious illness or injury that prevents you from working for six months, a year, or longer produces financial consequences that life insurance does not address because you are still alive. Disability insurance is the coverage most commonly missing from an otherwise complete insurance program.
Keep a Record Your Family Can Find.
Legal planning is not finished when the documents are signed. It is finished when the family knows where to find them.
The person who handles your estate after you die needs to know where things are. Bank accounts. Investment accounts. Retirement accounts. Life insurance policies. Real estate deeds. The location of your will and other estate planning documents. The name and contact information of your attorney, accountant, and financial advisor. The location of your safe deposit box and where the key is kept.
None of this needs to be elaborate. A single document — kept somewhere your family can find it and updated when things change — prevents weeks of searching and uncertainty at the worst possible time. Many families discover after a death that accounts existed they did not know about, that insurance policies were never found, or that the estate planning documents were in a safe no one knew the combination to. A letter of instruction does not replace a will. But it makes the job of administering the estate significantly easier for the people who have to do it while they are also grieving.
The documents alone are not enough. Most families discover this after a death, when the will says one thing and the beneficiary designation on the retirement account says another, when the deed still shows a name that has been dead for fifteen years, or when no one can find the life insurance policy because it was never recorded anywhere the family could look. Lawyers are not exempt from this. I have seen attorneys with sophisticated estate plans whose families still spent months locating accounts, correcting titles, and untangling beneficiary designations that were never updated after a divorce or a death. The cobbler’s children problem is real. Legal planning is not finished when the documents are signed. It is finished when the family knows what exists, where to find it, and what each piece does. The gap between those two points is where most estate plans fail in practice. Being ready does not require being perfect. It requires being findable.
Know the Deadlines Before They Pass.
The clock starts on the date of the injury, not the date you decide to pursue the claim.
Pennsylvania has a two-year statute of limitations for most personal injury claims. Miss it and the claim is gone regardless of how clear the liability is. Most people know there is a deadline. Fewer know it starts running on the date of the injury, not the date they decide to pursue the claim. Treatment, recovery, and hoping the situation resolves itself consume months that do not stop the clock.
Claims against government entities have shorter deadlines. A claim against the Port Authority of Allegheny County, a municipality, or a school district may require a notice of intent to sue within six months. That deadline is absolute. Missing it by a day bars the claim permanently.
Contract disputes, property claims, and business litigation also have statutes of limitations that vary by the type of claim. If you believe you have been wronged and you are waiting to see how things develop, the clock is running. The time to consult a lawyer is before the deadline, not after you have realized you may have missed it.
Talk to Your Family About the Plan.
A child who was surprised by a will almost always handles it worse than one who understood it while the parent was alive.
The estate disputes I have handled over the years have one thing in common more than any other: the family never talked about it. Not because the deceased was secretive. Because it is an uncomfortable conversation that keeps getting deferred until there is no one left to have it with.
You do not need to share every financial detail with every family member. But telling your children who the executor is, where the documents are, and in general terms what you intend — why you made the choices you made — prevents the kind of surprise that produces litigation. A child who disagrees with what a parent intended but understood it while they were alive almost always handles it better than one who was surprised by it after death. The conversation is not easy. It is far easier than the alternative.
Review the Plan When Your Life Changes.
A will that names a deceased person as executor names no one.
An estate plan that was right ten years ago may not be right today. Marriage, divorce, the death of a named executor or beneficiary, the birth of children or grandchildren, a significant change in assets, a move to a different state — any of these can change what the documents do and whether they still reflect what you actually want.
A will that names a deceased person as executor names no one. A power of attorney that names an ex-spouse as agent is a document you probably do not want to exist. A trust that was designed around an estate tax exemption that has since changed significantly may not accomplish what it was intended to accomplish. Review your plan every three to five years and after any significant life event. The review does not always require changes. But it should always be done.
The Practical Things Nobody Thinks to Write Down
The things that matter most in a minor emergency are the ones nobody mentioned.
The garbage disposal reset button is on the bottom of the unit. Press it when the disposal stops working before calling anyone.
The red cord hanging from the garage door track disconnects the automatic opener when the power goes out. Pull it to operate the door manually. Most people discover this for the first time while standing in a dark garage.
Keep your vehicle registration and proof of insurance in your wallet. They are small enough. If not, they go in the glove box — and everyone in your household who drives the car should know exactly where.
Keep a small amount of cash hidden somewhere on your person, separate from where you normally carry money. Bret Maverick kept a hundred dollar bill sewn into his jacket lining and never touched it except when there was no other way out. The principle is sound. Not for everyday use. For the stranger who stops to help you when your car breaks down at night, the cab when your phone is dead, the jam you did not see coming. It does not need to be much. It needs to exist and you need to leave it alone until you actually need it.
When You Drop Something Off, Always Get a Receipt.
It is the dog ate my homework argument in reverse. Nobody says the dog ate it when you are standing there holding the receipt.
A car at the mechanic. A piece of jewelry for repair. A document with a government office. A package at a shipping counter. The receipt is the record that you delivered it, what condition it was in, and when. The disputes that arise from dropped-off items are almost always won or lost on whether there is a piece of paper saying it happened.
The Conversation That Costs Nothing.
The people who navigate difficult situations best are almost always the ones who did this work in advance.
Most of what is on this list does not require a lawyer to address. Checking beneficiary designations, understanding how your property is titled, reviewing your insurance, creating a record your family can find — these are things you can do yourself. The documents — the will, the powers of attorney, the healthcare directive — do require a lawyer, but they are not expensive relative to what they prevent.
The people I have seen navigate difficult situations best are almost always the ones who had done this work in advance. Not because they anticipated every problem. Because they had given themselves and their families a foundation to work from when something unexpected happened. That foundation is what people with lawyers in the family take for granted. It is available to everyone.
This page is written by Stephen H. Lebovitz, Pittsburgh attorney and third generation lawyer at Lebovitz & Lebovitz, P.A. For the lessons learned from 35 years of practice, see what I have learned practicing law in Pittsburgh. For estate planning documents specifically, see estate planning in Pennsylvania.
People with lawyers in the family get this advice before they need it. Everyone else gets it after something goes wrong. Most of what is on this list takes an afternoon. Almost nobody does it until they have to. The ones who do are better prepared for everything that follows.