For a number of reasons the do-it-yourself mentality has been burgeoning over the last couple of decades, and one of the primary contributing factors to this societal trend is the explosion of the Internet. There was once a time when you had to trudge across town to the library or the bookstore to find the resources that you needed any time you wanted to do some research.

Even if you had an encyclopedia (is that word still extant in the English language at all?) it was very likely to be outdated to some extent by the time it left the printer. People still engaged in do-it-yourself projects back then, but it was a very different world when information traveled much more slowly.

These days you can go online, pop a term into a search engine and get virtually unlimited information on any topic instantaneously. But they say that “a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing,” and this is certainly true when it comes to the subject of estate planning.

You will find do-it-yourself will creation software and estate planning kits online, and many people wonder if they can simply use one of these rather than engaging the services of an estate planning attorney. The short answer would be this: no. A cynic might say that of course an estate planning attorney will advise against these kits, but it is not about that.

Estate planning involves preparing everything that you own for distribution to your loved ones after your death, and if you are truly prudent you will extend your plan to address other legal issues that elders face. It is a serious endeavor with very significant consequences, and it is not something that can be done with a one-size-fits-all software program that is not specific to any particular jurisdiction.