Total Legal Review 2023
Founded in 2003 and accredited by the Better Business Bureau, Total Legal offers a host of self-guided legal products at very low prices along with low-cost attorney support. Their online will template costs only $19.95, while a Total Legal subscription will cost you only $89.95 per year. While some of their features are still works in progress, this is an incredibly affordable estate planning solution.
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Pros and cons
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Editorial Notes
Total Legal provides solutions for your family and your business. You can create high-quality legal documents right on the company’s website. You don’t need to purchase and install any will maker software. Just complete an online interview, print your document or receive it by mail, and follow the instructions to sign them in your state. For your family, you can create a will, a power of attorney, or a living will. For your business, you can file LLC forms yourself or have TotalLegal file the paperwork for you. In addition, you can create quitclaim deeds, promissory notes, rental agreements, and other legal forms for various purposes.Credibility: Is Total Legal legit?
| Established in | 2000 |
|---|---|
| Registered in | Bellevue, WA |
| Google Rating | |
| BBB grade | A+ (Accredited) |
Total Legal was established in 2000 in Bellevue, WA. Currently, the company offers its services to the residents of all states, except Louisiana. Total Legal is accredited by the Better Business Bureau and has an exceptional A+ rating. On Google, Total Legals is rated 4.5 stars out of 5, which is also considered a very good rating.
Is Total Legal safe? Is Total Legal secure?
Any information that you enter on the Total Legal website, whether it is personal or payment data, is transmitted securely following encryption protocols and stored in your personal account, protected by a password that you choose when you register at their website. These practices make Total Legal safe and secure because they are up to the industry standards.
Total Legal Services and Pricing
Below are the services that are offered by Total Legal at www.totallegal.com, which can be summarized into three categories.
As we compare online will makers, we can say that Total Legal is cheap. Not only is $14.95 for a living will incredibly competitive, but their breakdown in prices is clear as day. The subscription service is also of great value, as you can get a 1-year subscription to Total Legal for just $89, which comes out to roughly $7.4 per month.
| Services | one-doc | Package | Subscription TotalLegal Plan |
|---|---|---|---|
| Last will and testament | $19.95 | ||
| Living will | $14.95 | ||
| Medical Power of Attorney | $19.95 | ||
| Financial Power of Attorney | $19.95 | ||
| $89.95 / y |
Estate Planning Documents
Business Products
Other Documents
Attorney Support
Total Legal: Strengths
Total Legal: Weaknesses
Compare Total Legal
| Payment structure | Flat fee |
|---|---|
| Free trial | No |
| Guarantees | 30-day money-back guarantee |
| States covered | All except LA |
| Attorney Support | Yes |
| Attorney Cost | Free will updates, Will with trust - $250 |
Trying to find a suitable online will making service can be a real challenge, as there are over a dozen companies offering these services in the United States today. All of them have different pricing policies, features, documents, rules, etc. So most people spend hours comparing different companies in an attempt to find the best offer. But we wanted to make our readers’ lives a little easier by comparing each company to its competitors based on several crucial criteria.
Number of Documents Offered
Total Legal customers can use the service to create four estate planning documents, including a last will and testament, living will, medical power of attorney, and financial power of attorney. While this selection of forms is enough for people in need of a basic estate plan, it doesn’t include several important documents such as a living trust or a pet power of attorney. This means that if you’re looking for a more comprehensive estate planning solution, you may need to supplement Total Legal with another service.
Payment Structure
Total Legal offers its customers two convenient payment structures. Users can purchase individual documents, or they can opt for a subscription which includes all four documents. In addition, this online will maker offers annual subscriptions. All in all, this selection of payment structures ensures that every customer can find a suitable option that makes the most financial sense in their situation.
Guarantees
If you choose Total Legal for your estate planning needs, you won’t need to stress about potentially having to fight the company for a refund if something doesn’t work out. Total Legal provides a money-back guarantee to all customers, so you can request a refund within 30 days of purchase if you’re not happy with the documents you create on their website.
Attorney Support
Total Legal customers can get discounted attorney support from lawyers who are part of the Legal Club of America. The company’s subscription customers usually get a 55% discount on legal services. While this is a great deal compared to will-makers that don’t offer attorney support, you may still be better off choosing one of the estate planning services that offer completely free legal consultations to their customers. You should also keep in mind that discount attorney support is not offered to customers who only purchase individual documents.
Free Document Update Period
Total Legal gives all its customers a free document update period, although its duration depends on the type of service you purchase. If you buy individual documents from the company, you will be able to amend them free of charge for two months after the purchase date. However, if you opt for an annual or monthly subscription, you will be able to update your forms only for as long as your subscription remains active. If you want to enjoy a longer free document update period, you can also consider other online will-making services, some of which offer free lifetime document changes.
Phone App Availability
If you want to create your estate plan on a smartphone or tablet, Total Legal may not be the best option, as this company is one of the many online will makers which doesn’t have a smartphone app. However, you can still access their website and fill out all the forms using a mobile browser, although this will likely be less convenient than using an app. Alternatively, you can opt for one of the other will-making services that have Android and iOS applications.
Ease of Use
| Instructions | Yes |
|---|---|
| Output format | PDF, Word, Mail, email |
| Turnaround Time | Instant |
| Platform | Web |
| Updates | Limited-time |
As touched on above, Total Legal is not the most user-friendly company. Their website is simplistic, but the will-making program is too outdated. It’s quite difficult to read the small, old fashioned font used along with some sections not being clear whether they’re mandatory or optional.
Total Wills is certainly easy enough to use for most average users, but there’s a lot of room for improvement. Fortunately, the service isn’t usually catering the complex legal situations (i.e. overseas digital assets), so suffices. However, those looking for a slicker experience or more fool-proof questionnaires may want to opt for a different company.
Customer Review Analysis
We wanted to compare Total Legal to other companies that offer online estate planning services. To get a sense of customer satisfaction, we looked through a large number of reviews found on the internet. We grouped these reviews into three categories: positive, negative, and mixed. Mixed reviews had a combination of both positive and negative comments or were neutral in nature. Positive and negative reviews were those that clearly demonstrated a positive or negative opinion about the service.
Distribution of Total Legal reviews compared to industry-wide average
After analyzing all the data, we were able to conclude that Total Legal’s customer satisfaction is better than the industry average, as the proportion of positive reviews for their services is higher than the industry standard. On the other hand, the number of negative reviews for Total Legal’s services is significantly lower than the average for other companies in the field. We did not discover any mixed reviews of this online estate planning firm. Overall, this suggests that Total Legal’s customers are generally happy with the company's services.
Most frequently given reasons for liking or disliking Total Legal
After that, we aimed to determine why some customers had a positive experience with Total Legal, while others did not. Therefore, we collected the most frequent reasons reviewers gave for liking or disliking their experience with the company. A significant number of reviewers praised the simplicity, ease of use, and cost-effectiveness of Total Legal's services. In fact, the percentage of people who found the price of the company’s services reasonable and their document creation process speedy and convenient was much higher than the industry standard. On the other hand, the few people who were not pleased with Total Legal mentioned that the service was difficult to use, hard to cancel, or that the company’s customer service was unresponsive as reasons for their dissatisfaction.
Distribution of reviews by service type
Total Legal offers a wide variety of legal documents in different niches in addition to estate-planning forms. Thus, when possible, we recorded whether reviews referenced Total Legal’s estate-related or non-estate-related services. We found that only a relatively small percentage of reviewers clearly referenced estate-related documents, while a large portion of reviewers didn’t make it clear which Total Legal services they used.
Unique Functions Offered by Total Legal
Below are some unique functions offered by the online legal company Total Legal:Revisions
Help Center
FAQ
Bottom Line
First and foremost, Total Legal is a legit online will maker that offers fantastic value. It’s super cheap and the company gives its customers access to real attorney services. There are lots of different services for users with business and personal needs.
However, there are only three estate planning documents offered on the platform. It feels a little bit like Total Legal is spreading themselves thin instead of niching down. Total Legal reviews show that this is a reliable company with some great value and comprehensive support, but it’s not going to be a good fit if you need a large selection of real estate planning documents or want to create a living trust.
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