Columbia residents can receive free estate planning help this month from University of Missouri law students. The estate planning clinic will take place on October 30th at the MU Family Impact Center on East Ash Street in Columbia. Eight students are participating in the pro-bono clinic in an effort to give back to the community.
Jennifer Clark, media relations representative for the law school, says the clinic makes a bigger impact than people think.
"I was talking to one of our clients last year who said that they just felt like a weight was lifted off their shoulders because this was done," Clark says. "This was something they feared and dreaded to do, and now it was done, and they could put this behind them.”
This is the third time the law school will be partnering with the MU Family Impact Center to host the clinic. Clark says she hopes they have more programs to continue to help the community, as they just recently started to assist more people in the city area of Columbia.
“One of the things to teach them is how to interact directly with clients, how to counsel clients, how to have those direct meetings with clients," Clark says. "The second thing that this program is designed to teach is the substantive law that goes into drafting estate planning documents. What are the legal requirements of drafting a will? What is the type of language that has to go into a document like that?”
The clinic is designed to spread awareness in the community, as more than half of adult Americans do not have a living will and testament, according to AARP. Anyone in the area who is interested can fill out an application on the MU Family Impact Center website at mufamilyimpact.org.