Most people think estate planning is about filling out the right forms. Name your beneficiaries. Sign your will. Done.

What you don’t see — and what an online template will never tell you — is everything an experienced attorney is quietly accounting for while drafting your documents.

The Nick Reiner case is a good example. Reiner is accused of killing his parents, filmmaker Rob Reiner and his wife Michele, at their Brentwood home in December 2025. He has pleaded not guilty. Now he’s fighting in probate court to access a $1.5 million trust his parents created for him, claiming he needs the money for his legal defense.

At the center of the dispute is California’s Slayer Statute — a law that prevents someone who intentionally kills another person from benefiting from their estate. His siblings will likely argue it applies. His attorneys argue the trust distributions vested before his parents died, putting them out of the statute’s reach.

The reason this is a fight at all? The trust documents likely didn’t address this scenario explicitly enough. A provision most people have never heard of, in a situation nobody anticipated, is now the subject of a prolonged probate court battle.

A good estate planning attorney thinks about the scenarios you’d never think to raise. What happens if a beneficiary becomes incapacitated before receiving a distribution? What if a trustee and a beneficiary have a falling out? What if family dynamics shift after the documents are signed? What if circumstances arise that the original plan simply didn’t anticipate?

You won’t know to ask about any of this. You shouldn’t have to. That’s what the attorney is for.

Online tools and DIY documents give you the form. They don’t give you the judgment. They don’t account for your specific family, your specific assets, or the hundred quiet decisions a skilled attorney makes while drafting that never appear on the page but determine whether your plan actually works when it needs to.

The Reiner family had resources. They had documents. What’s being litigated now is the space between what those documents said and what they didn’t say.

That space is where plans fail. A good attorney keeps it as small as possible.

Ready to work with someone who sweats the details? Book a Legacy Planning Session. We’ll answer your questions, review your options, and talk about our process and fees. Then, if we decide we’re a good fit to work together, we’ll take the next steps. And if not, that’s fine too! Normally $550, mention this blog and we’ll waive the session fee. BOOK HERE