Elea Crowther Nielsen

I have 40 years experience handling legal issues for business and personal matters. I have hired numerous attorneys over the decades and have never felt compelled to leave a bad review for an attorney, until now. After all was said and done, I felt that I should have had an estate attorney advising ...me what questions I should have asked Elea Nielsen before I hired her and what questions I should have asked her in the process of creating the will. Sounds absurd, well it is. I don’t feel she did her job in informing me of relevant information and asking me relevant questions which would change how I wanted to proceed. I have extensive experience handling legal matters, but I have not done a will in over 20 years so I may have forgotten certain things about estate law, the probate process etc., plus I moved from another state, but it’s not my job to know, or know what to ask or what to explain, it’s the attorney’s job. The last time I did a will I had a minor child and was single, now I have no minor children and am married so it’s a whole different scenario with different implications. It was not until after I signed the will that it came to light that my condo and other joint assets would not go to probate and so what is left that would go to probate is near zero and would not even be enough to pay my debts. I did not even need to do a will at this time. It all goes to my wife with or without this new will and my previous will names satisfactory contigent beneficiaries. More importantly, if things are not going to my estate do I want to make different arrangements or does my wife want to make different arrangements for the later transfer of these assets? All questions I didn’t know I needed to ask because the attorney did not do her job to delve into my details further and explain better. I did tell Elea that all I had were joint assets and to that she made no comment. She had me fill out a questionnaire of assets where it was asked to list dollar values for the joint assets but no request to know what they were nor how they were jointly held. I did ask Elea why she was not asking for details on the assets as my previous estate lawyer in Florida did and she said it was not necessary. But that is not so, in order to provide good and complete advice it is necessary. I guess she sure wasn’t going to tell me my wife gets it all with or without the will. So I paid top dollar, 1200.00, for about an hour of legal work, money I feel was not well spent, wasted because I don’t trust this attorney, and now I need to pay another attorney to advise me better and see if I want to do anything differently in the will or change how certain joint assets are held. I’m just here scratching my head wondering what else I don’t know about my estate planning that I should or how to better structure my desires. I can not recomment Elea Nielsen nor Erwin Law, surely you can get better for less money. This is my opinion.