A case study by Angel Valle Jr. Try the prototype below.
A concept for a flat-fee California trust and will intake, by Angel Valle Jr., September 2026
Example answers are filled in so you can click straight through. Change Sofia’s birth year to 2001 and watch the guardian question, and her guardian, drop out.
The same concept, cut to music. Turn the sound on.
A trust and will intake asks about money, property, children and death. Most people put it off because it feels like homework they could get wrong.
This flow tries to make it feel like a short conversation, with the plan taking shape where you can see it. It’s designed for the moment this usually happens: a parent at the kitchen table after the kids are asleep, one lamp on, phone in hand. That’s where the night colors come from.
My first version showed the plan as a list of documents. It was accurate, and it felt like a form.
Now each answer adds someone to a drawing. You at the top, your children below, the person who would raise them joined to them by a thread, and your home inside the line of the trust. One line under the drawing says why it changed.
The line over everyone stays dotted while it’s a draft. When you send it, it closes.
Every question started as the wording an attorney needs. I rewrote each one until it sounded like a person asking, and moved the legal terms into “Why we ask.”
| Typical legal wording | In the app |
|---|---|
| Designate a guardian of the person for all minor children. | Who would you want to raise Sofia?Asked by the child’s first name, and only when a child is under 18. |
| Identify any real property held in your name. | Do you own a home in California?A yes adds the deed that moves the home into the trust. The only other thing asked is a ZIP code. |
| List all issue of the settlor, including adopted issue. | Do you have children?“Issue” is the legal word for children. The hint under the question covers adopted children and children from earlier relationships. |
| Submit | Send to my attorneyThe button says what happens next. |
Today, starting a plan means booking a time first, and the intake form arrives by email afterward. In this concept, Start your plan goes straight to the first question.
Email and phone come last, on one screen before review. Booking happens after the answers are sent, at a location near the ZIP code they gave.
Clients never talk to a bot. The only help link in the phone is “Questions? Text our intake team.”
AI works on the other side. It turns the answers into a prep card for the attorney, and someone on the intake team checks it before the attorney reads it.
The optional chips at the end of Family, “Anything your attorney should know?”, are how a flat-fee intake catches scope before the attorney call. A chip never blocks Continue. It adds a line to this card and to Review.
Each one came from the same question: what would make a tired parent close the tab?
Legal terms like probate and guardianship live in “Why we ask,” never in the question itself.
The guardian question appears only when a child is under 18, and it asks about that child by name. It sits inside Family, so the step count never jumps. “I’m not sure yet” is a complete answer that gets flagged for the attorney.
Each answer draws itself into the family beside the form, and one line under the drawing says why it changed. Nothing is final until review, every answer is editable there, and progress saves.
This version is built to be put in front of people. Two things I’d want to learn first.
My guess is the assets step, which this version leaves out. It’s the first screen where people have to go find paperwork instead of answering from memory.
How: five parents on their own phones, at home in the evening, thinking out loud.
I’d watch whether married couples want to do it together on one screen or separately. The answer decides whether the tree has one root or two.
How: invite couples to the same session and let them pick one phone or two.