Opinion ID: 1245939
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Voita Matter

Text: The referee found: A will different from the October, 1987 will was drafted before May 26, 1987. Markert denies drafting more than one will. The earlier will must have been prepared by Ray. This conclusion rests only on Director's Exhibit 7, a memo to the Voita file dated May 26, 1987. In that memo, respondent wrote: We were also asked by Mary Voita to prepare a new Will and took to the nursing home and she read very carefully but wanted a change to provide an amount of approximately $1500 or a used car to her son Paul.    While we had her execute the Satisfaction of Mortgage we were reluctant to file it since she did not execute the Will and we did not want to have any question come up   . This memorandum reveals only that Mary Voita asked respondent and Markert to prepare a new will. True, the memo shows, and respondent admits, that some will had been prepared before May 27, 1989; it does not, however, shed any light on who prepared that will. Both Markert and respondent deny drafting the will referred to in the memo. Markert also testified that respondent did not participate in drafting the will. Because neither the memorandum to the file nor any other evidence in the record communicates who drafted the original will for Voita, the record does not support a finding that respondent drafted a will for Mary Voita before May 27, 1987. [1] The director claims that respondent engaged in the unauthorized practice of law by supervising the execution of Voita's will. The law, however, does not require a licensed attorney to supervise the execution of a will. The sections governing execution of wills in the Uniform Probate Code provide in pertinent part: [E]very will shall be in writing signed by the testator    and shall be signed by at least two persons each of whom witnessed either the signing or the testator's acknowledgment of the signature or of the will. Minn.Stat. § 524.2-502 (1988). Any person generally competent to be a witness may act as a witness to a will. Minn.Stat. § 524.2-505 (1988). The director cites Minn.Stat. § 481.02, subd. 3(2) as authority for asserting that respondent engaged in the unauthorized practice of law by supervising the execution of Voita's will. This provision allows a non-lawyer to draft a will in an emergency under the supervision of an attorney; it does not prohibit non-lawyers from supervising the execution of wills. Therefore, respondent's work on the Voita matter did not constitute the unauthorized practice of law by clear and convincing evidence.