I am looking for a list of attorney fees for minimum time spent on settling estates. why can I not get a straight answer?

You cannot get a single, standard answer for several reasons: Estate plans are written for individuals. Asking the minimum time required to settle an estate is like asking the minimum time it will take your baby to read well enough to pass a test. What you may think is involved in administering the estate may be a far cry from what the law says is required. What type of person you are matters. Do you process information slowly?  Are you a procrastinator?  Must you be nagged to do your part? Are you a messy record keeper or are you organized? All this affects the time a lawyer has to spend to attend to your matter. Who you hire matters. If you hire a lawyer who works in many areas of the law, a generalist, it could take that lawyer longer to complete the process than a lawyer who only does estate and probate work and is very familiar with the steps. Lawyers and their staffs (associates, clerks, paralegals, and clerical) are paid hourly at different rates. If your lawyer has a staff, some of the work can be done by a lawyer and other steps can be done by others. If not, you pay the higher attorney rate for everything. So, you can see that there is no standard fee for settling an estate. Here are some tips for getting an idea of what you’ll spend: Contact 3 probate lawyers serving the Tennessee area where the person who died was living at the time of his or her death. Ask the cost of a 1 hour conference to review your case. Choose the best and most experienced lawyer you can afford, schedule the conference and arrive ready to pay for the lawyer’s time. Bring everything you have related to the case – Wills, Trusts, prenuptial agreements, deeds other documents or written statements of the deceased, bills, receipts of payments, etc. After reviewing your case, the lawyer should be able to provide you with a plan of action (barring unforeseen circumstances) and an estimate of costs. He or she certainly will be able to provide you with the hourly rates of the attorneys and other staff in his or her firm who could work on your case. Then you can decide whether to hire that lawyer or talk to another. No one is trying to deceive you. You are simply asking a question that the lawyers or their receptionists have no way of answering by phone or email. It is a good thing you are not getting answers. No decent, honest estate and probate lawyer would make a guess about such a thing without reviewing your individual case and even then it will most likely be only a guess.  To Your Success, Gale Allison, Principal AttorneyAllison Firm, PLLChttp://www.theallisonfirm.comhttp://www.linkedin.com/in/galeallison.com