AI Literacy for the Estate Planning Attorney
The highest verification standard in this series — because errors may not surface until correction is impossible
AI Generates Plausible Text. Estate Planning Requires Current, Verified Law.
Large language models generate responses by predicting what text is statistically appropriate given a prompt — not by retrieving verified information from a current primary source. The federal estate tax exemption the model describes may reflect the law at its training cutoff, which may be different from the current exemption amount. The will execution requirements it describes for your state may reflect a prior version of the statute. All of this arrives in the same confident, professionally formatted prose.
Three reasons estate planning is particularly susceptible to AI error: (1) Documents take effect at incapacity or death — errors may not surface until correction is impossible. (2) The law changes frequently and the stakes of getting it wrong are high — estate tax exemptions have changed multiple times in recent decades. (3) Estate planning operates at the intersection of federal and state law simultaneously — AI may correctly describe one level while mischaracterizing the other.
Tax Law Currency: The Specific Obligation
Federal estate and gift tax law is the area where AI currency problems are most financially consequential. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 dramatically increased the federal estate and gift tax exemption — indexed for inflation, with a scheduled sunset. Whether Congress acts, and what it does, shapes estate planning strategy for high-net-worth clients in ways that no AI tool trained before the legislative outcome can accurately describe.
The practical rule: Every estate planning engagement involving federal estate or gift tax planning requires the attorney to verify the current exemption amounts, the current annual exclusion, the current GST exemption, and any recent legislative developments against current IRS publications and applicable Treasury regulations. The IRS website publishes current year exemption amounts. Revenue procedures and notices announce inflation adjustments. These are the sources that matter.
The Major Platforms in Estate Planning Practice
Ready-to-Use Prompts
Adapt these for specific client matters. All AI output requires attorney review; all tax figures and legal standards require verification against current primary sources.