The Case: Webster v. LegalZoom

In May 2010, a Los Angeles Superior Court class action titled Webster v. LegalZoom was filed by Katherine Webster, executor of her late uncle Anthony Ferrantino’s estate. Knowing he had only months to live, Mr. Ferrantino asked his niece in 2007 to help him use LegalZoom to prepare a will and a living trust. Both documents were created, signed, and put away — the family believed they had a complete estate plan.

After Mr. Ferrantino’s death, the documents did not perform as expected. The will had not been properly witnessed under California law, and the living trust had never been funded with his assets. Ms. Webster had to retain an outside estate planning attorney to petition the court for post-death funding and persuade banks to release the assets. The estate spent over $10,000 in legal fees fixing problems the LegalZoom package did not catch.

The class action alleged unauthorized practice of law under California Business and Professions Code §§ 6125–6126, deceptive business practices, and elder financial abuse, on behalf of more than 3,000 California residents who had bought a LegalZoom estate plan. LegalZoom settled in 2011 without admitting wrongdoing and modified some of its California business practices.

Why This Matters for Anyone Comparison-Shopping

Webster is not a story about a bad company. It is a story about a structural limitation in the DIY model. The software did what it was designed to do — generate documents from a template based on the customer’s answers. What it could not do, and the law does not permit it to do, was tell Mr. Ferrantino that his will needed witnesses present at signing, walk him through retitling his bank accounts into the trust’s name, or notice that a man with terminal cancer should prioritize trust funding above almost everything else.

Those judgments require a lawyer with a duty to a specific client. A software platform, by legal necessity, cannot offer that. Its terms of service expressly disclaim an attorney-client relationship — forming one would expose the company to the very unauthorized practice of law liability alleged in Webster.

When you buy from a DIY service, the document is yours. The responsibility for witnessing, funding, beneficiary coordination, and structural choices is also yours. For most families, that is where the trouble starts.

A Different Model

Easy Trust Now is a California law firm, not a document platform. Documents are drafted by a licensed California attorney, witnessing and funding instructions are part of the engagement, and you have a real attorney-client relationship if something later needs attention. The Webster family’s $10,000 problem is the kind of problem an attorney relationship prevents — not by being more expensive, but by being structured around your situation from the start.