A question about a WIll?

“Or should I tell him how unhappy I am with this, and see what he says. I don’t want to spend more money with him—each phone call is a charge.”
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I think you answered your own question. I would call him one more time, express your dissatisfaction and see if he will fix it at no extra charge (except for the phone call.) If he won’t, then walk and find someone else, perhaps who will do it for a flat fee.

I agree with @janbb. I would call him and let him know how disappointed I was in his work. That the will wasn’t even tailored to your wishes and needs. And ask “how can we rectify this since I’ve spent quite a bit of money on a personalized will already and don’t want to spend anymore.” Or something to that effect.
I found a home town lawyer that charged me 300.00 for a will, power of attorney, and medical power of attorney. When I went to pick it up, it was exactly as I requested.

Your will should represent your wishes and if it doesn’t do that it is worse than useless. Your lawyer should have sat down with you prior to preparing your will to discuss things in detail and make sure there were no misunderstandings.

My opinion is that your lawyer should fix your will at no extra charge and I would give him the opportunity to do this. There may be some reason for his, or her, shoddy work. If matters can’t be resolved you can file a complaint against the lawyer.

He did talk with me, and I told him what I wanted; he just ended up doing a very different kind of will than what I asked for. He even sent me a first draft which I wrote all over and sent back. His work isn’t shoddy, it’s just pages and pages of generic stuff that I don’t think needs to be included (eg. if I get pregnant or how to dispose of my boat or boats…and even though he knows I am a widow, there are references to a husband…I imagine if I did get married again—which I have no intention of ever doing—I would redo my will.) It’s an enormous legal document that has no relation to the kind of will I wanted to leave.
But I think these suggestions of talking with him and letting him know how disappointed I am are good. But should I write them (email?) or talk to him? On the other hand, I am thinking good money after bad, and I can’t imagine him doing more work to tailor this to me without charging me. But I guess it never hurts to ask. The real problem is that I think this is his kind of will, and he is not going to be happy taking things out that he thinks need to be there.

Go to someone else, you don’t pay if you are NOT happy with the documents.

I just did a set of documents with a lawyer, he rewrote several portions; happy and paid him.

It seems pretty obvious that you aren’t going to get a satisfactory product from him. From the sound of your description it seems that he is working – shoddily – from a template that has no bearing on your situation, and he seems to have either not understood or decided for whatever reason not to follow the commentary you already provided on his first draft.

So to avoid throwing good money after bad, I would recommend that you terminate your relationship with this attorney. You may elect to simply pay his final bill, throw out the will – making sure that it’s not filed with the Probate Court (or whatever institution handles such things in your area) and start from scratch, OR you may express such dissatisfaction and negotiate a reduction in fees already paid in order to obtain your agreement to not give bad Yelp reviews (or other social media), or to abstain from suing him outright for negligence and failure to perform. That’s up to you and your stomach for a fight, and whether you can afford to simply absorb the loss, financially and emotionally, “put paid” to it and move on. (Personally, although I do like a good fight from time to time, I tend to avoid them as “not worth the inconvenience.)

Have you looked into legal templates that you can tweak and adjust to suit your own situation? They’re available online at very modest cost, in MS Word format so that you can basically tweak it to suit yourself – and the framework is already there. You’re good at reading comprehension and writing; something like that would suit you well, I think. Then you could take YOUR finished product to an attorney (maybe even the same one, as part of your settlement with him) for a prepaid (based on what you’ve already paid for unsatisfactory work) legal analysis and commentary, plus filing with the appropriate authorities in your area.

Yeah, I agree with the above responses. Tell him his payment is in the will and he will get it when you die.

Tell him how unhappy you are.

@rojo, tell a lawyer you get your share when I die? YIKES!

Don’t feel bad about correcting him and your Will. Most Wills come in a generic form, meaning most of it is formatted already, so I am surprised he took 2 months. It is a draft, so I would email him? Tell him you are not happy with parts of it and take it from there.

I do agree with @LornaLove that a lot of the content of a will is boiler plate that they have to include but you have cause for complaint since the individualized parts don’t say what you want. See what they say when you approach them.

I would put your complaint in writing. Be very specific. Say, “I told you what I wanted included and you sent me all of this inapplicable boilerplate, which I marked up on the first draft with detailed comments.” “You did not make the changes that I requested.” “Your work product is unsatisfactory, and I do not want to pay for it.” “I am considering taking my business elsewhere.” “I need a full return on the fees that I have paid you and/or an acceptable will according to the parameters that I gave you.”