Law Estate Planning

Wills and Living Trusts

A practical estate planning course for understanding documents, decisions, and family protection strategies

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Quick Course Facts
18
Self-paced, Online, Lessons
18
Videos and/or Narrated Presentations
6.2
Approximate Hours of Course Media
About the Wills and Living Trusts Course

Wills and Living Trusts is an online Law course that helps students understand the essential estate planning documents, decisions, and family protection strategies used to organize assets and wishes. This course explains how wills, living trusts, beneficiary tools, fiduciary roles, and incapacity planning work together so students can approach estate planning with greater clarity and confidence.

Build A Practical Estate Plan With Wills And Living Trusts

  • Learn the core differences between wills, living trusts, probate, and transfer tools.
  • Understand how estate planning decisions affect family protection, privacy, timing, and costs.
  • Explore practical strategies for minor children, blended families, beneficiaries, and fiduciary choices.
  • Prepare for more productive conversations with attorneys, trustees, executors, and loved ones.

A practical estate planning course for understanding documents, decisions, and family protection strategies, Wills and Living Trusts.

This course introduces the foundations of estate planning in clear, practical language, including what happens when someone dies without a plan and how probate can affect families. Students will study the role of Law in organizing wills, trusts, powers of attorney, health care directives, and beneficiary designations.

Through focused lessons on Wills and Living Trusts, students will learn what each document can do, where each has limits, and how tools such as pour-over wills, revocable trusts, transfer-on-death designations, and joint ownership may fit into a broader plan. The course also explains how to fund a living trust and why asset ownership matters.

Students will examine planning issues for real estate, bank accounts, retirement accounts, life insurance, personal property, minor children, young adult beneficiaries, second marriages, and blended families. By the end, students will be better prepared to review their own goals, ask informed questions, organize key documents, and make thoughtful estate planning decisions that support family protection and long-term peace of mind.

Course Lessons

Full lesson breakdown

Lessons are organized by topic area and each includes descriptive copy for search visibility and student clarity.

Foundations

3 lessons

Lesson 1: Estate Planning Foundations: Goals, Documents, and Common Misconceptions

20 min Preview
This foundational lesson frames estate planning as a practical decision-making process, not just a set of legal documents. Students learn the main goals of an estate plan: directing property, protecti…

Lesson 2: What Happens When Someone Dies Without a Plan

18 min
When someone dies without a valid estate plan, the law supplies a default plan. That process is called intestacy , and it usually means state law decides who inherits, a court supervises the estate, a…

Lesson 3: Probate Explained: Process, Costs, Privacy, and Timing

21 min
This lesson explains probate as the court-supervised process for transferring property after death, paying valid debts, resolving disputes, and giving legal authority to the person handling the estate…

Wills

2 lessons

Lesson 4: Wills: Core Functions, Limits, and Key Clauses

22 min
This lesson explains what a will actually does in an estate plan: it directs probate property, names decision-makers, appoints guardians where allowed, and creates instructions for distributing assets…

Lesson 5: Naming Executors, Guardians, and Beneficiaries in a Will

19 min
This lesson explains how a will names the people and organizations who carry out your wishes, care for minor children, and receive property. It focuses on three core choices: the executor, guardians f…

Living Trusts

4 lessons

Lesson 6: Living Trusts: What They Are and How They Work

22 min
This lesson explains what a living trust is, how it operates during life and after death, and why many families use one as part of an estate plan. It focuses on the core mechanics: the roles involved,…

Lesson 7: Revocable vs. Irrevocable Trusts: Practical Differences

20 min
This lesson explains the practical difference between revocable and irrevocable trusts: control and flexibility on one side, stronger protection and planning consequences on the other. Students learn …

Lesson 8: Funding a Living Trust: Moving Assets Into the Plan

23 min
Funding a living trust means changing ownership or beneficiary arrangements so the trust actually controls the assets it is supposed to manage. A signed trust document is only the starting point; with…

Lesson 9: Pour-Over Wills and How They Support Trust Planning

18 min
This lesson explains how a pour-over will works alongside a revocable living trust. Students learn why the will is still needed even when the trust is the main estate planning tool, what assets it can…

Asset Transfers

3 lessons

Lesson 10: Beneficiary Designations, Joint Ownership, and Transfer-on-Death Tools

24 min
This lesson explains how assets can pass outside a will or living trust through beneficiary designations, joint ownership, payable-on-death accounts, transfer-on-death registrations, and transfer-on-d…

Lesson 11: Planning for Real Estate, Bank Accounts, and Personal Property

21 min
This lesson explains how common asset categories are actually moved into, or coordinated with, an estate plan. Students learn why a will or living trust does not automatically control every asset, and…

Lesson 12: Retirement Accounts, Life Insurance, and Tax-Deferred Assets

23 min
This lesson explains how retirement accounts, life insurance, annuities, and other tax-deferred assets usually transfer outside a will or living trust through beneficiary designations. It focuses on t…

Family Planning

2 lessons

Lesson 13: Planning for Minor Children and Young Adult Beneficiaries

20 min
This lesson explains how estate plans can protect minor children and young adult beneficiaries by separating three different decisions: who raises the child, who manages inherited money, and when the …

Lesson 14: Blended Families, Second Marriages, and Conflict Prevention

22 min
Blended families and second marriages often create estate planning tensions that do not appear in first-marriage, shared-child households. A surviving spouse may need income, housing, and dignity, whi…

Incapacity Planning

1 lesson

Lesson 15: Powers of Attorney and Health Care Directives

21 min
This lesson explains how powers of attorney and health care directives protect a person and family during incapacity. It focuses on the practical difference between financial authority, medical decisi…

Fiduciary Roles

1 lesson

Lesson 16: Choosing Trustees, Executors, and Agents Wisely

19 min
This lesson explains how to choose the people or institutions who will carry out an estate plan: trustees, executors, financial agents, health care agents, guardians, and backups. Students learn what …

Risk Management

1 lesson

Lesson 17: Estate Taxes, Creditors, and Asset Protection Concepts

22 min
This lesson explains how estate taxes, creditor claims, and asset protection concerns fit into a practical estate plan. Students learn why most estates do not owe federal estate tax, why state taxes a…

Implementation

1 lesson

Lesson 18: Keeping the Plan Current: Reviews, Storage, and Attorney Meetings

20 min
This lesson covers how to keep an estate plan useful after the documents are signed. Students learn when to review wills, living trusts, beneficiary designations, powers of attorney, health care direc…
About Your Instructor
Professor Nathan Ward

Professor Nathan Ward

Professor Nathan Ward guides this AI-built Virversity course with a clear, practical teaching style.