AI for estate planning law firms. More plans per attorney.
AI can turn a client questionnaire into a draft plan from the firm's templates, summarize the design meeting, prepare trust funding checklists and keep signings and follow-ups on schedule. Modern Thesis helps owners of estate planning firms put that to work, so each attorney can serve more families without cutting corners on review.
At a glance
- Who it's for: owners, managing partners and firm administrators of estate planning and elder law firms with $10M+ in annual revenue.
- What Modern Thesis does: AI strategy, change management, implementation and ongoing stewardship, from one team.
- How it starts: a strategic assessment that measures how the work moves today and ranks where AI pays first. See the assessment.
- Where: based in the Denver area, with an office at 11001 W 120th Ave, Ste 400, Broomfield, CO 80021. On site across the Denver metro and Colorado, and remote anywhere in the US.
- What it doesn't do: give legal advice, sign or file anything on your behalf, or publish a rate card. Each engagement is priced to its scope after a first conversation.
Who is this page for?
This page is for the people who run an estate planning practice. Much of the work is priced as a flat fee, so every hour of drafting and follow-up comes out of the margin. A typical plan moves through the same steps: questionnaire, design meeting, drafting from templates, review, signing, then trust funding, which clients often leave unfinished. The work is repetitive in structure and personal in detail, which is a good fit for AI drafting with attorney review.
Where does AI help an estate planning firm?
These are examples of what can be built, not past results:
- Turn the client's intake questionnaire into a first draft of the plan (wills, revocable trust, powers of attorney, health care directives) from the firm's templates.
- Summarize the design meeting into decisions and open questions for the attorney to confirm.
- Check the draft documents against each other for consistent names, fiduciaries and distributions.
- Build and track the trust funding checklist after signing, with reminders to the client.
- Schedule annual or periodic plan reviews and prepare a summary of what may have changed.
Why does trust funding matter?
Because an unfunded trust may not do what the client expects. Retitling accounts and real estate into the trust is often left to the client after the signing, and many never finish. AI can build a funding checklist from the client's asset list, send reminders, track what's done and flag accounts still outside the trust. That is a service improvement clients notice, and it can become a recurring maintenance offer.
Can an estate planning law firm use AI without risking client confidentiality?
Yes, if the system is built for it. The ABA's Formal Opinion 512 says lawyers using generative AI must consider their duties of competence, confidentiality, client communication and reasonable fees.1 In practice that means client files sit in a private system only your firm can search, access is agreed in writing, nothing is used to train AI models, and a lawyer reviews every output before it reaches a client or a court. Modern Thesis builds to those rules from the start. We don't give legal or ethics advice; your firm decides what its obligations require.
What does Modern Thesis do for a firm like this?
Modern Thesis covers four disciplines with one team. In strategy, Jim Coleman and the team map how the work moves from first contact to final invoice. In people, we work with the professionals and staff on incentives and training, so they trust and use what gets built. In implementation, our AI specialists and Forward Deployed Engineers build private systems on the firm's own documents and connect them to the software you run. In stewardship, we stay to check accuracy, keep pace with new AI models and report the return against the baseline.
How does an engagement start?
Every engagement starts with a strategic assessment. We sit with the people who do the work, map how it moves through the firm today, and measure a baseline on the workflows that matter most: attorney and paralegal hours per plan, days from design meeting to signing, drafting errors caught in review and trust funding completion. Then we rank the opportunities by return and define the first build. If AI won't pay for itself somewhere in your business, we'll tell you.
When is something else the better choice?
If your estate planning software already drafts from your templates well, use it and focus elsewhere. If your volume is low, a template library and a general assistant may be enough. If the main need is better writing, the ChatGPT or Copilot licenses you already pay for may be enough; our comparison of Copilot or ChatGPT and an AI partner walks through the difference.
How Modern Thesis handles this
We put AI to work inside xFusion, the 70-person company Jim co-founded, and then for several of its clients. For an estate planning firm, we usually start with drafting time per plan, because it is the clearest margin lever under a flat fee. Ongoing stewardship has no set end date, and you own your data, accounts, code and documentation throughout.
Questions
Can AI draft wills and trusts?
It can prepare first drafts from your firm's own templates and the client's information. The attorney reviews and finalizes every document. The value is in speed and consistency: names, fiduciaries and terms match across all documents, and the attorney's time goes to judgment and the client conversation.
Is AI useful for flat-fee estate planning?
Especially so. Under a flat fee, every hour saved on drafting and follow-up is margin. AI shortens the time from meeting to draft, checks consistency and handles the follow-up, so each attorney can serve more clients at the same quality.
How does AI help with trust funding?
It keeps track. From the asset list, AI can create a checklist of what needs retitling, send the client instructions and reminders and record what's done. Funding is often the step clients skip, so tracking it protects both the client and the firm.