Whether it's a plan or a probate, MatterOS knows which clock applies.
Planning and administration run at completely different speeds under one roof - checklist-driven drafting on one side, real court deadlines on the other. MatterOS prunes the whole workflow to match which one you're actually running, from day one.
What drives this practice: probate-calendar
What actually eats a estate planning attorney's week.
Planning and probate need almost nothing in common, but firms run both
A will-and-trust planning engagement and a court-supervised administration are shaped completely differently. MatterOS's `matter_subtype` fact prunes stages and the deadline cascade wholesale on intake, so a planning file never inherits a probate court clock it doesn't need, and vice versa.
Whom you actually represent gets genuinely confusing in probate
Personal representative, a beneficiary, an heir, a creditor - privilege lines blur fast, and it's the classic estate-practice malpractice trap. MatterOS asks the party question explicitly and never lets synthesis output blur who the client actually is.
The asset inventory is the whole case, and it arrives in pieces
Real property records, financial accounts, business interests - each one landing on its own schedule from a different institution. MatterOS accumulates all of it into a running gross-estate figure automatically as documents arrive.
The stages MatterOS already knows this practice runs through.
Not a generic case-management pipeline - the actual shape of a matter in this discipline, branches and terminal stages included.
- Intake & Asset Inventory / Plan Design
- Drafting
- Execution
- Funding
- Petition & Appointment
- Notice & Inventory
- Creditor Claims
- Administration
- Tax & Accounting
- Distribution
- Closing
The creditor claim bar
Set by the notice-publication date in probate matters, jurisdiction-variable, and it's the wall that determines which creditor claims are even still eligible. Federal estate tax (Form 706), when it applies, is fixed at death plus nine months with a trackable six-month extension - both run alongside the claim bar without either one crowding the other out.
Anchors nearly everything in a probate/administration matter.
Testate/intestate fork changes the checklist and roles.
Running total, from inventory extraction.
Appointment date - starts the inventory clock.
JV, from letters.
The Fact Ledger keeps every number honest.
This practice doesn't get a bespoke calculator yet - it gets something more foundational: every fact MatterOS extracts is cited to its source, contradictions are flagged instead of smoothed over, and gaps show up as gaps rather than silence.
MatterOS already knows what this practice's paperwork looks like.
Drop a file into the matter and it gets filed to the right category on arrival - no manual sorting, no naming convention to remember.
Never the wrong word in front of a client - or a court.
Every draft and every synthesis MatterOS produces for this practice follows the same negative-vocabulary rules a careful associate would.
The checklist MatterOS opens before you've had coffee.
The classic estate-practice trap.
Six reasons estate planning and probate attorneys choose MatterOS.
Testate/intestate and planning/probate/trust-admin/contested subtypes each prune the stage list and cascade differently - the pack is a family of shapes, not one workflow forced onto every engagement.
Vocabulary that keeps privilege lines clear: testate/intestate, per stirpes/per capita, residuary, self-dealing - and it never lets ambiguity slide on whom the firm actually represents.
Post-execution funding follow-ups fire automatically at 30 and 90 days, because an unfunded trust is the classic planning-side failure and MatterOS treats it as a tracked tickler, not a hope.
The claims register tracks every creditor claim as filed / allowed / disputed / barred, so the claim bar date isn't the only thing visible - the actual status of every claim against it is too.
An insolvent estate automatically switches the checklist to insolvency ordering, borrowing the Bankruptcy pack's logic rather than leaving a probate matter to improvise administration priority from scratch.
Original will location and death-certificate ordering are opening-day items precisely because they're the two things that stall a probate petition longest if nobody starts them immediately.
What this looks like on a real file.
A planning engagement opens with an asset-and-beneficiary questionnaire. MatterOS reads the client's uploaded deeds, statements, and policy documents alongside it, mapping ownership structure and flagging beneficiary designations that don't match the stated intent - before the drafting meeting, not after.
A different matter opens as a probate: letters are issued, and MatterOS starts the inventory clock and the creditor-claim-bar countdown from that date automatically, while the gross estate value accumulates as bank and brokerage statements come in over the following weeks.
Ninety days after a plan gets executed, a funding-follow-up tickler fires on the first matter - the deed work and account retitling that's easy to let slide once the signing ceremony is behind everyone. It doesn't slide, because the tickler doesn't forget.
Questions estate planning and probate attorneys actually ask.
Does MatterOS handle both estate planning and probate in the same product?
Yes, as one pack that prunes itself by `matter_subtype` - a planning engagement never sees court-cascade deadlines it doesn't need, and a probate matter gets the real creditor-claim-bar and inventory clocks a planning file has no use for.
How does it help figure out whom I actually represent in a probate matter?
It asks explicitly at intake - personal representative, a beneficiary, or another interested party - because that answer flips the entire posture of the matter, and the pack's negative-vocabulary rule specifically bars ambiguity about whom the firm represents in any synthesis output.
What happens if the estate turns out to be insolvent?
MatterOS's Estate Snapshot flags negative-estate exposure and switches the administration checklist to insolvency ordering, borrowing the same logic the Bankruptcy pack uses rather than leaving the priority sequence to be worked out manually.
Does it remind me to make sure a trust actually gets funded?
Yes - funding follow-up ticklers fire automatically at 30 and 90 days post-execution, because an unfunded trust is the single most common way an otherwise well-drafted estate plan fails to do its job.
See how MatterOS runs a estate planning & probate matter - on your own file.
Drop in the documents from a real matter and watch it assemble: parties, dates, deadlines, and a synthesis written the way estate planning and probate attorneys actually talk. Free 7-day trial, no card required to start.