Few people like to think about death. So few that according to Gallup, 54% of U.S. adults do not have a will. Those who do are mostly over the age of 65, are upper class, and are white. Most are educated with at least one college degree.

I could say something about how death doesn’t care about ethnicity, skin color, age, education, or wealth, but in reality, it does. Because of prejudice, racism, police brutality, homophobia, genetics, access to health care and countless other issues, some folks are more at risk of dying than others. 

As an author and artist, a will is an important piece of documentation as I have copyrights, trademarks, etc. that will survive me. Rights have to be managed after I’m gone. 

But as a nonbinary queer, a will (as well as a Power of Attorney) become critical.

For example, my mother, if she thought she could, would take every dollar I have. If I were to die, she’d steal everything from Molli in a heartbeat. While Molli’s grandmother and niece have been great about Molli being trans, we have no idea how her father would react. We also know my family is anything but supportive on that front, which is sadly more common than it should be.

It means that if either of us die any time soon, our families could make life difficult for either one of us and that’s not a place we want to be. We want to be sure that our most important people are protected from such conflict. 

I have no intention of dying anytime soon, but then, no one ever does, so Molli and I set out recently to make sure all of our ducks are in a row with regards to our last wishes. We specifically used an attorney who is known in the local queer community to ensure they understood our valid concerns regarding certain family members who might try and throw a wrench in everything.

Having an attorney who understands is important, which is why we chose whom we did. However, our experience was not as positive as we were hoping.

While we do have all our legal documents made, we ran into a bit of a snag when it came time to sign those documents. Things like a will have to be signed before witnesses and they have to be notorized, which means we had to visit our attorney in person…during a pandemic. 

We were assured that everyone would be masked, which made us feel a bit better about the entire process, and for the bulk of the appointment, they were. The receptionist at the front desk was not, but the folks around the table with us (legal secretary, witness, notory) were, though they were only wearing baggy masks that did little to protect us from airborne pathogens. This meant we were already on edge. Toss in the fact that this was us signing a bunch of documents about dying and yeah, we were stressed.

The stack of documents we needed to read and sign was a bit over 200 pages, so not as long as what we had to read and sign to buy our home but still fairly long.

Oh yeah, we’re those people—the ones who actually read something before we sign it.

Honestly, everyone should be thosepeople. Everyone should read a legally binding document before signing it. As it was, we found several errors in these pages that required the secretary to reprint various portions. This is one reason why we READ documents before signing them, especially when dealing with rights and dealing with folks with hostile family members.

To recap, we had:

• A receptionist who didn’t mask
• Poorly fitting masks on the rest
• Mistakes in the “final” documents

Our appointment began at 11:45 AM and was apparently scheduled to end by 12:15 PM. 30 minutes to read 200+ pages of legalise and sign everything, complete with witnesses and notorizing. 

That was never going to happen.

At 12:20, our attorney walked into the conference room. She was unmasked and frustrated because we were taking too long. When the secretary mentioned that we were reading the document, she was visibly upset.

That’s right, folks. The attorney who is charged with protecting our interests was upset that we were taking the time to READ what we were signing.

When we explained that it was important to read a legal document before signing it, she said we could “read it later” and submit corrections after the fact.

Um, no.

There is no universe in which a good attorney should tell you to read something AFTER signing it.

Any attorney who tells you not to read something important before signing it has no business practicing law.

We mentioned to her that as our attorney, she should be encouraging us to read everything before signing anything, she grew more frustrated with us. I mean, if she really didn’t want us to sit there for an hour and read it, she should have sent the document to us beforehand so that we could read it on our own time, but nope. She didn’t make it available to us prior to that in-person appointment.

Because we had already paid half the cost up-front, which is common, we went ahead and signed all the documents, but we plan to have a new attorney double check everything. To our eyes, the documents seem fine, but sadly, we can’t trust that this attorney had our best interest at heart.

Between the idiocy of expecting us to sign a legally binding document without reading it and the mistakes we found in the document, we can’t trust this attorney. She’s not at Attorney at Law but an Attorney at Nothing.

With money tight, this was an expensive process and one that, emotions aside, should have been easy. At least we have what we need in place, but the experience definitely didn’t sit well with either of us. 

Anyone know of a good attorney for wills in the Greater Seattle area? Particularly one who understands queer rights and the rights of writers/artists?