AI for Estate Planning and Probate Lawyers: Intake to Documents

01 / PRACTICE NOTES

The estate is scattered across statements, deeds and policies.

An estate plan or a probate administration begins with an inventory the client has never seen in one place: brokerage and bank statements, retirement accounts, life-insurance policies, deeds, business interests, vehicles and digital accounts. Each has its own owner, title, beneficiary designation and value date, and many arrive as scans.

Create the matter in RuleX and choose Estate planning or Probate as the practice area. Upload the documents in batches of up to 20; OCR reads the scanned pages, and RuleX keeps each document available as the matter develops. Ask for an Excel inventory with asset, title, value, value date, beneficiary designation and the document behind each entry.

The inventory shows the plan the documents already create. A beneficiary designation or joint title controls how an asset passes regardless of the will, and a sourced inventory lets counsel see those arrangements before drafting.

02 / PRACTICE NOTES

The family chart and the questions come before the draft.

RuleX asks what an estate plan depends on: the client’s state of domicile, marital status, children and their circumstances, the people the client wants to serve as fiduciaries, special-needs or blended-family concerns, business succession and the goals for each asset. For a probate matter it asks about the date of death, the decedent’s domicile, the instruments located and the persons who may have to be notified.

Ask for a family chart from the answers and documents, naming each person and relationship. State probate procedure turns on that chart. In New York, for example, SCPA § 1403 lists the persons to whom process must issue in a probate proceeding, including the distributees of the testator and the executor named in the will, as well as certain beneficiaries and fiduciaries under other instruments. Identify the state and let that statute’s categories drive the chart.

Execution formalities are also state law. New York’s EPTL § 3-2.1, for instance, requires that a will be signed at the end by the testator and attested by at least two witnesses. Add the state’s execution requirements to the signing checklist for every instrument.

1. Choose Estate planning or Probate and name the state of domicile.
2. Upload statements, deeds, policies and prior instruments, up to 20 documents per upload.
3. Ask for the asset inventory with beneficiary designations and sources.
4. Answer RuleX’s questions about family, fiduciaries and goals.
5. Review the family chart and the plan memo before drafting.

03 / PRACTICE NOTES

Federal estate tax belongs in the memo from the start.

The federal layer is a short list of figures and dates, and each can be checked at its source. For decedents dying in 2026, the basic exclusion amount is $15,000,000 under 26 U.S.C. § 2010(c)(3)(A) as amended by Public Law 119-21, and it is adjusted for inflation for later years. The IRS lists the 2026 annual gift exclusion at $19,000 per donee. Section 6018(a) requires the executor to file an estate tax return where the gross estate exceeds the basic exclusion amount, and § 6075(a) calls for the return within nine months after the date of the decedent’s death.

Two features shape many plans. The unlimited marital deduction in 26 U.S.C. § 2056(a) allows a deduction for property passing from the decedent to a surviving spouse, and the portability rules in § 2010(c)(2)(B) and (c)(4) allow a surviving spouse to use a deceased spousal unused exclusion amount. Ask RuleX to place the inventory total beside the current exclusion amount and to list the planning and filing steps counsel should consider.

Dates become tasks. In a probate matter, add the nine-month return date as soon as the date of death is known. The matter then carries the deadline, the responsible attorney and the supporting documents together.

04 / PRACTICE NOTES

Drafts appear in the Canvas beside the inventory.

With the inventory approved, ask for the first instrument: a will, a revocable trust, a power of attorney, a health-care directive or, in probate, a petition and the notices that follow. RuleX drafts in prose with the state’s formalities in mind and refers to the inventory for the property being disposed of. Edit in the Canvas, ask for alternatives for any provision and download Word.

Use this working prompt: “Using the uploaded statements, deeds and policies, build an asset inventory with title, value, value date and beneficiary designation. Ask me about domicile, family, fiduciaries and goals. Then write a plan memo comparing the options, with the federal estate tax figures and the state execution requirements, before drafting the will and trust for review.”

A good handoff to the client includes the inventory, the plan memo and the signing checklist. Keep the executed instruments, funding confirmations and the schedule of beneficiary designations in the matter so the file is complete when the client calls in five years.

05 / PRACTICE NOTES

In probate, the same file becomes the administration record.

After appointment, the inventory turns into the working ledger of the estate. Ask RuleX for an Excel workbook of receipts and disbursements built from the account statements, a log of creditor claims with the date each was received and a distribution schedule that follows the will or the intestacy chart. Every line keeps its source document, so the accounting can be assembled from the file rather than from memory.

Meetings with family members are part of the record. Upload a recorded client conference and RuleX transcribes it with speaker identification, so instructions, concerns and decisions are searchable in the matter. Tasks for notices, inventory filing, claim review and distributions stay on the matter calendar with the responsible attorney named.

06 / PRACTICE NOTES

Make intake repeatable for the whole practice.

Create a RuleX agent for the practice with the inventory columns, the intake questions, the plan-memo structure and the signing checklist. Share it with the team. Every client’s documents remain in that client’s matter, and the method stays constant.

Start with a plan you have already drafted by hand. Compare the inventory and memo with your own, tune the instructions and keep the agent. The next intake starts from your own standard.