What Goes in Legal

Created by IronClad Family Support, Modified on Tue, Jul 28 at 11:10 AM by IronClad Family Support

Legal holds the documents that speak for you when you can't — who decides, who inherits, who cares for your children, and what happens to your medical care if you're unable to say. These are the instruments a family reaches for at the hardest moments, and the ones they most often can't find.

Five subcategories live under Legal. Two of them — Last will and its codicils — have their own guided wizards, covered in separate articles. This page explains the fields every legal record shares.

New to how the forms work — required fields, reminder dates, attachments? Start with Understanding the Forms.

The shared form

Whether you're recording a will, a trust, a power of attorney, a health directive, or a guardianship designation, the fields are the same:

Document type (required) — will, codicil, revocable trust, irrevocable trust, financial POA, medical POA, advance directive, guardianship
Executor / trustee / agent — the person who acts under this document
Drafting attorney / firm
Execution / signing date
Notarized? — yes, no, not sure
Last review date (drives reminders)

Name the executor, trustee, or agent exactly: this is the person the document actually empowers — to settle your estate, manage a trust, make financial decisions, or speak for your medical care. Your family needs to know immediately who that is, because until this person steps in, things freeze: bills unpaid, decisions unmade. Name them precisely, and make sure they know they've been named. An agent who first learns of their role in a crisis is at a disadvantage exactly when it matters.

Record the attorney and signing date even when you don't have the document: “there's a will, drawn up by this firm, signed around this year” is enormously more useful than silence. It gives your family a phone number to call and a starting point — and a stale signing date is itself a signal that the document may be due for review.

Last will

Your will and its codicils. This subcategory has guided wizards — you can build a will or a digital-assets codicil from scratch, or record one your attorney prepared.

Because there's more to say about signing rules, keeping it current, and the digital-asset codicil that unlocks online accounts, the will and codicil each have their own full articles: Create and Maintain a Last Will and Testament and Create and Maintain a Codicil.

Trusts

Revocable and irrevocable trusts, using the shared form above. The key field is the trustee — the person or institution managing the trust's assets.

If you have a trust, it usually holds significant assets and exists precisely to keep them out of probate. That only works if your family and your trustee can find it. A trust nobody knows about doesn't do the job it was created and paid for to do.

Power of attorney

Financial and medical powers of attorney — the documents naming who acts for you while you're alive but unable to act for yourself.

This is the document for the emergency you survive: a stroke, an accident, a period in the ICU. Without a power of attorney on hand, a family can be locked out of paying your bills or directing your care, sometimes needing a court to appoint someone — slow, expensive, and happening at the worst possible time. Record both the financial and the medical agent, and make sure this record is in a vault someone can reach quickly, not one that only opens after death.

Health directives

Living wills and advance directives — your wishes about medical care if you can't express them yourself.

A directive nobody can find is a decision your family has to make instead: whether to continue treatment, what interventions you'd want or refuse. These are the heaviest decisions a family ever faces, and your directive exists to carry that weight for them. But only if it reaches them in time — which, like a power of attorney, means a vault that can be opened during a medical emergency, not one that waits.

Guardianship (minor children)

The legal designation of who raises your children if you can't.

The most important legal document a parent has: if guardianship isn't clearly designated, a court decides who raises your children — possibly not the person you'd have chosen, and only after a painful process. Record it here, name the guardian in your will as well, and put the practical version — who to call, what to do that first night — on your child's record under Personal. Ask the guardian first. And name a backup, in case your first choice can't serve when the time comes.

IronClad Family helps you organize and store these documents, but does not provide legal advice, and recording a document here has no legal effect on its own. Signing, witnessing, and notarization rules vary by state. Consult a licensed attorney to ensure your documents are valid and reflect your intentions.