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Contact: Contact Kristin Weber at 202/887-8255, kweber@halt.org
 Washington, DC—With a new legal self-help guide released today, HALT helps demystify the process of settling an estate after a loved one dies (a legal procedure called probate). The complexity of probate, with its confusing court forms and procedures, intimidates many people and forces them to turn the task over to a lawyer. But HALT's new Citizens Legal Guide Probate: How to Settle an Estate educates people about the possibility of handling the probate process without hiring a lawyer and points to recourses that can help people do it themselves. Handling probate is a multi-million dollar business for lawyers and the fees they collect often bear little relation to the actual amount of work involved in probating an estate.
"If an estate plan is straightforward, almost anyone with basic arithmetic skills and the ability to follow instructions can handle probate with little or no help from an attorney," informs the guide, which provides an overview of the probate process and also includes information on easing the eventual probate of your own estate.
In the guide, HALT also urges the executor (the person named in the will, or appointed by a judge to settle the estate) to opt for small estate administration (also known as a non-probate procedure) if the estate qualifies. Small estate administration is a streamlined procedure that is available for estates with assets below a certain dollar limit. HALT's reform efforts focus on raising those dollar limits-which are as low as $3,000 and as high as $150,000 in some states-to make this simplified procedure more widely available to legal consumers.
HALT's 8-page Citizens Legal Guides are the newest additions to HALT's selection of self-help publications. The new booklets supplement HALT's existing range of resources, which includes brief brochures and handouts along with Citizens Legal Manuals, full-length books that offer detailed information on a legal topic. HALT points to the book The Executor's Guide: Settling a Loved One's Trust or Estate as a more comprehensive complement to its new Citizens Legal Guide on probate. HALT recently teamed up with Nolo Press, the largest publisher of legal self-help guides and manuals, to make an exclusive edition of The Executor's Guide, a full-length do-it-yourself book covering the entire probate process.
Because HALT receives thousands of letters through its Legal Information Clearinghouse, the organization is uniquely positioned to identify legal consumers' needs. Each publication HALT produces addresses a common legal consumer question and fills a gap in the existing universe of self-help publications. All of HALT's articles, brochures and Citizens Legal Guides are offered to consumers for free on the Internet and by mail, while HALT books are offered at an affordable cost.
Founded in 1978, HALT—An Organization of Americans for Legal Reform is a nonpartisan, nonprofit public interest organization. HALT pursues an aggressive education and advocacy program that challenges the legal establishment to improve access and accountability and reduce costs in the civil justice system. Please visit www.halt.org for more information.
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