Fully automated wills
1/8
Why a will
Our first fully automated matter was an employment contract. The legal work there is a document. A will is different: most of the work is facts about a family, a tax calculation, and a signing on paper that the law treats as a ceremony.
So we ran a will end to end, again with an agent doing the legal work. It is an unforgiving test. A will's mistakes come to light after the client has died, when nobody can ask what she meant: a blank where an executor's address should be, a witness married to a beneficiary, a tax figure that forgets the gift to charity. We wanted to see which of those the system would catch before she signed.
2/8
Enquiry to strongroom
The client gave her instructions in her portal, the agent did the drafting, and the only meeting was the one the law requires.
Rosalind Mercer, a widow, asked a firm she had never used for a will. She has two adult children, a granddaughter, a house and a pension, and wants to leave a ring to her granddaughter and money to a local animal charity.
71 minutes at the screen, then a 30-minute signing
CompactExpanded
Agent 40.5 minPartner 22.4 minClient 7.6 minSigning meeting 30 min
- Onboarding16.4 min
- Estate, research and drafting41.9 min
- Review and changes8 min
- Signing32.0 min
- Bill and close2.2 min
Recorder timeline, 3 October 2026. The signing meeting is time away from the screen, recorded with the signing.
She filled in the firm's enquiry form. The partner ran a conflict check and sent one link, which took Rosalind through her will instructions, identity checks, the engagement letter and money on account. The agent drafted the engagement letter, researched the law, then drafted the will, an advice letter and a letter of wishes.
Rosalind read the drafts in her portal and asked for two changes, which came back as tracked changes. The will was signed at the firm's office in front of two witnesses, the original went to the strongroom, and the matter was billed and closed.
3/8
What makes a will different
The questionnaire was the wrong shape, so we changed it.
A flat list of questions cannot hold a family. We added questions that take a list, one entry per child, asset, gift or executor, each with the same fields. From those entries the system builds an estate schedule: who is in the family and who is married to whom, what she owns and roughly what it is worth, and who inherits.
From the schedule comes the firm's inheritance tax estimate, in two cases.
| | Death before 6 April 2027 | Death from 6 April 2027 | | ------------------------------------- | ------------------------- | ----------------------- | | Estate | £860,000 | £1,070,000 | | Gift to charity (exempt) | − £10,000 | − £10,000 | | Nil rate band, hers and her husband’s | − £650,000 | − £650,000 | | Residence nil rate band, both | − £350,000 | − £350,000 | | Taxable | £0 | £60,000 | | Inheritance tax at 40% | £0 | £24,000 |
Her £210,000 pension sits outside her estate today. From April 2027, unused pension funds count, and the same estate owes £24,000. That is the most useful sentence in her advice letter, and it came out of the questionnaire, not the research.
The first will the agent drafted named the executors “of \[address\]”, because the questionnaire never asked for their addresses. An automatic check refused to let that will be arranged for signing. The fix belonged upstream: the questionnaire now asks for executors' addresses and a charity's registered number.
4/8
The agent's work
Before drafting, the agent researched the nil rate bands, claiming her late husband's unused allowances, the 2027 pension change, gifts to charity, and the rules for signing and witnessing a will, from GOV.UK and legislation.gov.uk. The will followed: executors, the ring held for her granddaughter until she is 18, the charity gift with a receipt clause, the residue to her children with a substitution if either dies first, and a full attestation clause.
In an earlier run, the advice letter put the tax at £28,000 on £70,000. It had worked the figures out again and missed the charity exemption. Now the firm's schedule and estimate are sources the agent reads and cites, and the letter carries the same £24,000 the partner sees.
When Rosalind asked for her brother as a reserve executor and a larger charity gift, the agent made both changes as tracked changes, each with a note saying why, and left everything else alone.
5/8
Signing on paper
A will cannot be signed electronically, so the system arranges and records a signing.
The partner set a time and place. Rosalind's portal told her when to come, what to bring and that her family cannot witness. After the signing, the partner recorded who witnessed it, a scan of the signed will, and that the original is in the strongroom.
The check that matters is who may witness. Her son-in-law came with her, and the system refused him: under the Wills Act a gift to a witness or a witness's spouse fails, so her daughter would have lost her half of the estate. It also refuses the record unless both witnesses were present together.
We entered him on purpose, and the meeting itself was simulated. The checks were not.
6/8
Time and the bill
An hour at the screen, a half-hour meeting, and a bill well under the estimate.
The partner's time, step by stepTime on the clockCaptured by the systemAway from the screen, recordedTriage the enquiryTriage the enquiry: 0:52 on the clockTriage the enquiry: 0:45 captured by the system0:45 of 0:52Engagement letter (agent)Engagement letter (agent): 6:41 on the clockEngagement letter (agent): 5:36 captured by the system5:36 of 6:41Conflict check, send the linkConflict check, send the link: 2:06 on the clockConflict check, send the link: 1:49 captured by the system1:49 of 2:06Record due diligenceRecord due diligence: 0:45 on the clockRecord due diligence: 0:39 captured by the system0:39 of 0:45Record money on accountRecord money on account: 0:21 on the clock0:21, nothing capturedReview the estate scheduleReview the estate schedule: 0:31 on the clockReview the estate schedule: 0:29 captured by the system0:29 of 0:31Research (agent)Research (agent): 14:46 on the clockResearch (agent): 12:39 captured by the system12:39 of 14:46The will (agent)The will (agent): 10:04 on the clockThe will (agent): 8:18 captured by the system8:18 of 10:04Advice, letter of wishes (agent)Advice, letter of wishes (agent): 16:34 on the clockAdvice, letter of wishes (agent): 14:04 captured by the system14:04 of 16:34Sign off and shareSign off and share: 0:48 on the clockSign off and share: 0:42 captured by the system0:42 of 0:48Tracked changes (agent)Tracked changes (agent): 6:05 on the clockTracked changes (agent): 4:49 captured by the system4:49 of 6:05Arrange the signingArrange the signing: 0:37 on the clockArrange the signing: 0:30 captured by the system0:30 of 0:37Signing meetingSigning meeting: 30:00 recorded with the signing30:00 recordedRecord the signingRecord the signing: 1:03 on the clockRecord the signing: 0:57 captured by the system0:57 of 1:03Record time, billRecord time, bill: 0:56 on the clockRecord time, bill: 0:30 captured by the system0:30 of 0:56Close the matterClose the matter: 0:45 on the clockClose the matter: 0:26 captured by the system0:26 of 0:45
Enlarge diagram
The system captured 58 of the partner's minutes on the matter, and the signing meeting added 30. Time capture cannot see a meeting in a room, so the meeting's length is recorded with the signing. In an earlier run that recorded meeting was wrongly taken off the captured screen time, halving the bill. That is fixed.
Ninety minutes at the partner's rate came to £525 plus VAT, against an engagement-letter estimate of £1,200 to £1,800. As with the first matter, the hourly rate stops measuring the work once an agent does the drafting. A will is usually sold at a fixed fee, and that fits better.
7/8
Was it a real instruction?
Closer than the first run. The gaps have moved from the system to the room.
1. Conflict check before onboardingGate · partner Onboarding could not be sent until the partner had searched the client and cleared the result. 2. Sign-off on the agent’s draftsGate · partner The engagement letter, the will and both letters could not reach the client until a partner signed off that version. A change after sign-off asks again. 3. Nothing left blankAutomatic check The first draft of the will named the executors “of \[address\]”. The signing could not be arranged until the blanks were filled. 4. Who may witnessAutomatic check · Wills Act 1837 Refused her son-in-law as a witness, because a gift to a witness’s spouse fails (s.15), and required both witnesses to be present together (s.9). 5. Client money before closingAutomatic check The matter cannot close while it holds the client’s money. Money still owed to the firm does not block closing, but the close dialog now says so.
| Check | Verdict | What happened | | ---------------------------- | ------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Conflict check | Met | Searched and cleared before onboarding was sent | | Identity | Partly | Photo ID and proof of address uploaded, checked by eye | | Capacity and undue influence | Missing | Nobody met the client alone or recorded that she understood the will | | Tax advice | Met | The advice letter uses the firm’s own figures | | Partner review | Partly | Every draft was signed off, but the sign-off was a click, not a read | | Execution | Met | Two witnesses present together; the son-in-law refused. The meeting was simulated | | The original | Met | Recorded in the strongroom with a reference, and a scan in the client’s portal | | Client money and fees | Partly | Nothing held at close, but £130 of fees unpaid when the file closed |
The gates we proposed after the first run were all in place, and each stopped something. What is left is what a solicitor does in person: seeing the client alone, satisfying themselves that she understands her will and is not being pressed, and running the signing.
8/8
Our Conclusions
A will is a good test because so little of it is drafting. Most of the matter is getting the facts right, and the facts decide everything after: the tax, who may witness, what the will must say. The agent was most accurate where it read the firm's own working instead of redoing it.
The deterministic checks earned their place. A blank address, a disqualified witness and an unsigned-off draft were each stopped by a rule, not a reviewer.
The parts that remain human are ones the law and good practice put in a room: the conversation about capacity, and the signing. For a will, that is where a lawyer's time now goes.