Rocket Lawyer has been around since 2008, its founders wanting to create a company providing legal documents that could be created and shared by everyone at a lower cost than retaining the services of an attorney. The company soon expanded out into the provision of do-it-yourself legal services, including will-preparation. According to Rocket Lawyer, the company has helped some 20 million people in the United States, including 165,000 wills.
Rocket Lawyer are a subscription service, meaning that they don’t offer a one-time payment to buy software. What they do offer is a legal consultation service, and so while users can theoretically prepare a will for free using their website, there is a charge for printing and sharing that document. The company is more designed for small business owners, but there are some advantages to choosing them ahead of the rest of the best online will maker software available today.
How much does Rocket Lawyer cost?
- Subscription-based business model
- Prices start at $39.99 per month
Depending on the readiness and preparedness of the user and their efficiency in creating a will, Rocket Lawyer can become one of the more expensive options on the market, as it isn’t a company that is particularly suitable for buying one-off legal documents. However, the process is actually one of the easier ones around, and so with a modicum of preparation, making a will can actually be fairly reasonably priced.
It is free to prepare a will with Rocket Lawyer, but it then costs $39.99 to save, print and share that same document for non-subscribers. There are other set charges for non-members. Attorney review costs $9.99, asking their legal consultants a question costs $49.99 per question, and a 30-minute consultation on one legal question costs $59.99.
Subscribing to Rocket Lawyer costs $39.99 per month, and that includes all of these services at no additional cost, so it pays to subscribe, especially if your will can be drawn up in under a month. Rocket Lawyer offers a free seven-day trial, and subscribers can cancel their plan at any time during their subscription.
Rocket Lawyer review: Products
Rocket Lawyer’s product is simply a subscription to their services, available at $39.99 per month. Annual and ‘Accelerated’ versions are available, but these are really for small businesses; for will-preparation, the monthly subscription should be adequate. The price includes preparation of a last will and testament, an Attorney Review service, questions answered over email by legal consultants, and 30-minute consultations with the same legal consultants (with one question per consultation). The price also includes unlimited document revisions and copies. Cloud-based subscribers can download in Word, PDF, RTF and text formats. If users are on a free trial, they may only download documents as a PDF.
Rocket Lawyer review: Document creation
Rocket Lawyer has a very accessible and intuitive document-creation process, easily comparable with its peers in the marketplace. Creation and storage of the documents is in the cloud, and so there’s no software to install and users may access their documents from any device with an internet connection.
Rocket Lawyer review: Attorney advice
Monthly subscribers have access to various avenues of legal and administrative help. There’s an email and telephone customer service line, and the monthly subscription includes time for live consultations with attorneys in the Rocket Lawyer network.
Rocket Lawyer also offers a wealth of free legal-help articles that examine the basics of almost all legal matters, including several articles on the preparation of a will and estate-planning. These articles are free for anyone to access.
Rocket Lawyer review: Usability
Preparing a last will and testament with Rocket Lawyer is fairly straightforward and it compares well with most of its competitors in the marketplace. It lacks the checklist of programmes such as Quicken WillMaker but there are asset worksheets, progress checks, and legal term glossaries that are easy to access. One great feature of Rocket Lawyer is that there are sample wills available for perusing online, which will help users organise their own estates and give them ideas that they might not have otherwise considered.
As with most programs available for will preparation, the process uses an interview format, with some questions being multiple choice and others needing the user to fill in text as they answer.
Rocket Lawyer’s formatting of the process is easy on the eye and very simple to follow. You can save your progress at any time, and if you need to access their online help, email one of their customer service team or set up a live consultation with a lawyer, which is possible at any point. Any number of changes are possible before the final document is printed and there are ample opportunities to review the document, which can be downloaded in several formats for subscribers. Rocket Lawyer offers a good selection of tools and help options, and for anyone who has done even minimal preparation, the process should present very few problems. Rocket Lawyer has been accredited with the Better Business Bureau since 2006, and it currently enjoys the highest ‘A+’ rating.
Should you choose Rocket Lawyer?
Although Rocket Lawyer are mainly a legal company that would be suited to ongoing legal matters for small businesses, their will-making software has some advantages. It’s possible to create a Last Will and Testament for free using their seven-day free trial, and then pay for one month as a subscriber to get the full benefit of their support services. Their interface is incredibly user-friendly, and the flexibility in terms of revisions and different formats that the final document can be shared in is among the best available.
