Legal technology's move to streamline what were once manual administrative tasks is having an interesting side effect: empowering consumers to do some of the legal leg work themselves.

EstateExec, for instance, acts a project management tool for estate settlement, working to streamline administrative and financial tasks usually handled by an estate executor's lawyer. The solution provides users with interactive checklists covering tasks that need to be done after one has passed on, providing schedules and deadlines, and explaining to the executor his or her responsibilities, legal rights and compensation.

Importantly, it also offers financial tools to assess the value of the estate, divvy up the assets among heirs and recipients, track and pay expenses, and allow users to understand their legal rights and responsibilities as an executor.

The solution, however, doesn't aim to completely replace probate attorneys. “Having a lawyer to settle your estate is a little like hiring an accountant to do your taxes,” said Dan Stickel, founder of EstateExec. He explained that people hiring accountants and estate lawyers rely on them for ongoing help and still need to do a lot of the manual work upfront to support these hired professionals.

What EstateExec does, therefore, is streamline the manual tasks needed to make it easier for probate attorneys to perform higher-level legal work. The solution does not tackle any legal-specific tasks, such as state-specific requirements for estate settlements. Nor does it offer legal advice on its own or draft legal documents. Indeed, EstateExec encourages people to work with attorneys through its sharing features, where users can allow attorneys access to the administrative and financial work users have done.

Yet while EstateExec doesn't aim to replace estate lawyers, it does make it potentially less expensive to hire them. “Definitely, it should reduce the number of hours you need your attorney,” Stickel said. “Now, if you want your attorney to handle as much as possible, it just makes it easier and clearer what is happening. And if you want to offload and do some of that work yourself, it makes it much easier, too.”

EstateExec initially launched in 2015, but the solution announced several user interface and operational updates in April 2018 that it says will help better enable estate executors to handle the demands of estate settlement. Such updates include adding partial asset distribution features, charts and graphs to show financial funds and expenditures, and mobile use functionality.

EstateExec isn't the only aid on the market for estate executors. Companies like Vanguard offer checklists for executors, while others like Estate Works offer project management solutions specifically designed for estate planning and settlement.

Stickel, however, believes that only his solution offers comprehensive financial and administrative functionality for estate executors. “There are plenty of things you can use online, or buy books about how to be an executor, or how to keep an inventory of your assets. But there's nothing else that deals with the actual settling of the estate or tracking of the data.”