An estate planning client intake checklist tells you exactly what to collect from a new client before you draft a will, trust, or power of attorney. Get it wrong and you rewrite documents. Get it right and the first meeting produces a full engagement, a signed retainer, and a document set you can actually work from.
This checklist covers everything most estate planning attorneys and paralegals request during intake: personal details, family and beneficiary information, assets and liabilities, existing documents, and the questions that decide which instruments you draft.
Copy it, adapt it to your practice, and use it as a repeatable template for every new client.
Estate planning intake checklist (copy-ready)
Use this as the master list. Each section below explains what to ask for and why.
Personal information
- Full legal name (as it appears on government ID)
- Any other names used (maiden name, prior married names, aliases)
- Date of birth and place of birth
- Government ID (driver’s license or passport)
- Social Security number
- Home address and length of residence
- Phone, email, preferred contact method
- Citizenship status
- Marital status and date of current marriage
- Prenuptial or postnuptial agreement, if any
Spouse or partner information
- Full legal name and date of birth
- Government ID
- Citizenship status
- Prior marriages and any relevant divorce decrees
- Spouse’s existing estate plan documents
Children and dependents
- Full name and date of birth for each child (biological, adopted, stepchildren)
- Marital status of adult children
- Names of any grandchildren
- Details on any child with special needs
- Details on any dependent adults (aging parents, disabled siblings)
- Guardianship preferences for minor children
Other beneficiaries
- Names, addresses, and relationships of any non-family beneficiaries
- Charities, foundations, or organizations the client wants to include
- Percentage or dollar allocations, if already decided
- Contingent beneficiaries
Real estate
- Address of each property owned
- How title is held (sole, joint tenants, tenants in common, community property)
- Purchase price and estimated current value
- Mortgage balance and lender
- Copies of deeds
Financial accounts
- Bank accounts (institution, account type, approximate balance)
- Brokerage and investment accounts
- Retirement accounts (401(k), IRA, Roth IRA, pension)
- Health savings accounts
- 529 education savings plans
- Cryptocurrency wallets and account details
- Current beneficiary designations for each
Business interests
- Business name and entity type
- Ownership percentage
- Operating agreement or bylaws
- Buy-sell agreement, if any
- Key person insurance
- Succession plan or preferences
Life insurance and annuities
- Policy issuer, policy number, and death benefit
- Owner and beneficiary on each policy
- Cash value, if applicable
Debts and liabilities
- Mortgages
- Auto loans
- Student loans
- Credit card balances
- Personal loans
- Guarantees or co-signed debts
Personal property of significant value
- Vehicles, boats, aircraft
- Jewelry, art, collectibles
- Firearms (with any required transfer documentation)
- Digital assets (domain names, online accounts, digital currency)
Existing estate documents
- Prior wills
- Existing trusts
- Prior powers of attorney (financial and healthcare)
- Advance directives or living wills
- HIPAA authorizations
- Prior estate planning attorney contact info
Fiduciary appointments
- Preferred executor and successor executor
- Preferred trustee and successor trustee
- Preferred guardian for minor children
- Preferred agent for financial power of attorney
- Preferred agent for healthcare power of attorney
- Contact info for each
Goals and instructions
- Distribution wishes (equal shares, specific bequests, staggered distributions)
- Charitable giving intentions
- Funeral or burial preferences
- Organ donation preferences
- Digital legacy instructions
- Any known family conflicts to plan around
Tax and planning considerations
- Prior gifts over the annual exclusion
- Existing life insurance trusts (ILITs)
- Existing grantor trusts
- State of primary domicile and any secondary residences
- Anticipated inheritances
Why estate planning intake is different
Most law firm intake forms collect contact details and a description of the matter. Estate planning intake is different because you need a full financial and family picture before you can draft anything. Missing one asset, one beneficiary, or one prior document changes what you produce.
A tight intake process does three things at once:
- Qualifies the client. You find out fast whether this is a straightforward will or a multi-generational trust situation.
- Prices the engagement accurately. Flat fees only work if you know the scope going in.
- Reduces drafting cycles. Every fact you collect upfront is one you don’t have to email for later.
Firms that treat intake as an afterthought end up with three or four rounds of “just one more question” emails before drafting even starts. Firms that treat it as a structured process finish drafts faster and have fewer surprises at signing.
How to run intake without drowning in email
The old way: send a PDF questionnaire, hope the client fills it out, chase them for the missing pages, and rekey everything into your practice management system.
The better way: send a secure link that guides the client through the sections above, uploads their supporting documents, and flags anything that’s missing. You review from a dashboard. They see what’s left. Nobody hunts for the latest version of the form.
Superdocu does exactly this for estate planning firms. You build the intake checklist once, then reuse it for every new client. Contacts get a branded portal, upload documents at their own pace, and see clear status indicators for what’s approved and what still needs attention. You get notified as they finish each section, so no more manual follow-ups.
For firms that handle recurring updates (annual reviews, changes after a birth or divorce, trust funding checks), you can also build repeatable workflows that clients can trigger themselves.
Section-by-section: what to ask for and why
Before you send the checklist to a client, make sure you understand why each section matters. That way you can trim or expand it for the type of estate plan you’re building.
1. Personal and spousal information
You need legal names, birthdates, and ID because the documents you draft will reference them exactly. A will that says “Robert Smith” when the client’s ID says “Robert James Smith Jr.” creates title problems later.
Marital status matters because community property states, joint tenancy, and elective share rules all change based on whether the client is married, remarried, divorced, or widowed.
2. Children and dependents
Guardianship is one of the top reasons parents finally sit down to write a will. Ask early who the client wants to name and whether that person has agreed. If there’s a child with special needs, flag it immediately. You are likely looking at a supplemental or special needs trust, not a standard bequest.
Stepchildren are a common blind spot. Ask directly. Intestacy rules in most states do not treat stepchildren as heirs.
3. Real estate and titling
How title is held matters more than the property itself. A property held as joint tenants with right of survivorship passes outside the will. A property held as tenants in common goes through probate for the deceased owner’s share. If the client is unsure, request a copy of the deed and confirm from the recording.
4. Financial accounts and beneficiary designations
Beneficiary designations on retirement accounts, life insurance, and payable-on-death accounts override the will. Every estate planning intake should surface these designations early, because if they conflict with the plan, the beneficiary designation wins.
For a related deep dive, see our document expiration tracking guide. The same discipline that keeps insurance certificates current keeps beneficiary designations aligned with the plan.
5. Business interests
If the client owns a business, intake needs the operating agreement, any buy-sell agreement, and the ownership percentage. Business succession is often the most complex part of an estate plan and the part clients are most reluctant to think through. Getting the paperwork on file during intake lets you raise the right questions in the first meeting.
6. Digital assets
Digital assets are the newest addition to most intake forms and still the most underserved. Ask for domain names, online business accounts, cryptocurrency, and any accounts with meaningful stored value (loyalty programs, marketplace balances, cloud storage subscriptions). Many states now recognize digital fiduciary access under the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA), but only if the estate plan grants it explicitly.
7. Existing documents
Always request copies of prior wills, trusts, powers of attorney, and any existing estate planning correspondence. You need to know what you’re replacing or amending, and prior documents often reveal beneficiary designations or fiduciary appointments that clients have forgotten they made.
8. Fiduciary appointments
Executors, trustees, guardians, and agents are the people who will carry out the plan. Ask for two names for each role: a primary and a successor. And ask whether the client has spoken to those people. A named executor who declines to serve at probate is a common cause of estate delays.
9. Goals and instructions
This is the section that turns raw data into an actual plan. Ask about distribution wishes, charitable intent, funeral preferences, and any family dynamics that might create conflict. Free-text answers here often reveal the real reason the client is engaging you: a fear of a specific heir, a preference for one child’s family, a charitable legacy they’ve never told anyone about.
10. Tax and prior planning
Prior gifts count against the lifetime gift and estate tax exemption. Existing irrevocable trusts create their own tax and administrative rules. Multiple residences may create ancillary probate exposure. None of this shows up unless intake asks for it.
Free intake questionnaire template
Copy the checklist above into your firm’s onboarding email, or turn it into a fillable form. If you want a ready-to-send version, here’s a compact template:
Subject: Welcome to [Firm Name] â please complete your intake before our first meeting
Hi [Client First Name],
Thanks for scheduling your estate planning consultation with [Firm Name]. To make the most of our meeting, please complete the intake form below and upload the requested documents at least 48 hours before we meet.
Here’s what we need:
- Personal and spousal information
- Names and dates of birth for your children and any dependents
- A list of your assets (real estate, accounts, business interests, life insurance)
- Debts and liabilities
- Copies of any existing wills, trusts, or powers of attorney
- Your preferences for executor, trustee, guardian, and healthcare agent
Upload securely here: [link to intake portal]
Reply to this email if anything is unclear.
[Your name]
[Firm name]
For more copy-paste templates, see our library of document request email templates and follow-up emails for missing documents.
Intake best practices for estate planning firms
A few habits that separate firms with clean intake from firms that keep rewriting engagement letters:
Send the intake before the first meeting, not after. The first meeting should be a conversation about goals, not a data-collection exercise.
Give clients a portal, not a PDF. PDFs get lost, edited badly, or emailed to the wrong address. A secure portal lets clients upload documents once, come back to finish later, and see what’s still missing.
Approve documents as they come in. Don’t wait for everything to arrive before reviewing. Rejecting an unreadable deed on day one saves a week versus catching it during drafting.
Reuse the same intake for every client. Build one master intake workflow and reuse it. Any variations (revocable trust vs. will-based plan, business owner vs. individual) become branches of the same template, not separate forms.
Track document status across your book. For firms with dozens of active intakes, a spreadsheet stops working fast. A shared dashboard showing every open intake and what’s still missing prevents things from falling through the cracks.
If you want to see how a purpose-built platform handles this, Superdocu offers a 7-day free trial, no credit card required. You can build your estate planning intake workflow, invite one or two test clients, and see the whole pipeline in a couple of hours.
For other law firm workflows, see our law firm client intake checklist and client intake form template.
Frequently asked questions
What documents do estate planning attorneys need at intake?
At minimum: a government ID, a full list of assets and liabilities, copies of any existing wills or trusts, deeds for real estate, and beneficiary designations for retirement accounts and life insurance. Firms handling business owners also request operating agreements and buy-sell agreements.
How long does estate planning intake take?
For a straightforward will and healthcare directive, most clients complete intake in 30 to 60 minutes if they have their documents on hand. For plans involving trusts, business interests, or multiple properties, expect intake to run across two to three sittings.
Should I use a paper intake form or a digital portal?
A digital portal is almost always better. Clients can save progress, upload documents from any device, and see what’s still missing. Attorneys get a searchable record and don’t have to rekey anything. Paper forms tend to sit half-filled on kitchen counters for weeks.
What’s the difference between client intake and client onboarding?
Intake is the initial data and document collection that happens before you take the case. Onboarding is the broader relationship-building process (welcome package, retainer agreement, first meeting scheduling) that happens once the engagement is signed. Estate planning firms often blur the two into one workflow.
Can I use one intake form for both individuals and married couples?
Yes, but make the spousal section optional or conditional. The cleanest approach is to build one intake workflow with a “Do you want to include your spouse or partner?” question that reveals the spouse section only when relevant.
Ready to build a repeatable estate planning intake process? Try Superdocu free for 7 days, no credit card required.