E-wills may be coming soon to an estate planning near you. On Friday morning, the D.C. chair of the Uniform Law Commission (ULC) published the Electronic Wills Act online, a template for any and all states considering folding a statute for the practice into their regulatory framework.

The potential spread of e-wills across the land may be good news to virtual or small law firms accustomed to conducting their business with clients remotely without the added expense of gas, airfare or other travel-related costs.

"I do think it's something that lawyers will embrace," said Patrick Hicks, legal counsel at the online estate planning service Trust & Will. "I think it will start with solo lawyers or small firms. I think it kind of meshes in well there."

However, the extent to which his theory will be tested remains to be seen, since the act published by the ULC serves as more a template for a state law than an actual mandate.

But it's not as if there's zero enthusiasm on the table. Interest in e-wills has been brewing at the state level since at least 2018, with Florida, Arizona, Virginia and Indiana all introducing bills with the intent of bringing those documents into the legal framework.

Sandra Glazier, a partner at Lipson Neilson, believes the Uniform Law Commission was attempting to get out in front the possibility that several wildly conflicting statutes would be introduced.

Those gaps could lead to some conflict or confusion if, say, a person files their will in Michigan and then eventually relocates to Florida where they peacefully live out the rest of their golden years before passing away on a shuffleboard court.

"When it comes to estate planning there is some benefit to uniformity because we live in a very mobile society," Glazier said.

However, don't expect e-will legislation to be identical from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. While the commission can provide a framework for a statute, states are free to either adopt that template wholesale or make modifications as they see fit.

Still, Glazier expects that action from the Uniform Law Commission will benefit the spread of e-wills if for no other reasons than free publicity.

"Creation of statutes is going to create a marketing opportunity for a lot of these [e-will] companies," Glazier said.

On the legal side, simple economics may also play a role. Hicks pointed out that most people have become accustomed to being able to trigger actions through the use of an electronic signature.

Blockchain tech of course plays a major role in facilitating those transactions and Hicks expects most major e-will providers to —eventually — incorporate that architecture into their products.

After all, one of the major attractions of blockchain is that allows for a digital and immutable record of a transaction that is unalterable by any of the parties involved. That's not such a bad safeguard to have when dealing with the entirety of a person's estate.

Hicks, however, doesn't think that clients will be too dazzled by the underlying sophistication of the blockchain technology involved. Instead, they'll be more focused on  the convenience of being able to execute something as substantial as a will remotely, potentially setting a new standard of expectation in the process.

And where clients go, lawyers usually follow. Hicks indicated that the digital records afforded by blockchain may also appeal to firms tired of cramming paper records into filing cabinets.

But that transition may not happen all at once.

"I think that larger law firms are going to be slow to adopt, and I do think that some attorneys will be slow to adopt. They have a process set up and it works for them," Hicks said. "I do think there's going to be a little bit of friction in the change and embracing new opportunities.