I’ve practised law since 1973. I built DYOdocs because my clients’ families deserved better.

I’ve been a lawyer since 1973. Over fifty years, I’ve helped thousands of New Zealand families sort out their wills, powers of attorney, and estate plans. I’ve also watched thousands more — good people, organised in every other part of their lives — leave it undone.

Not because they didn’t care. Because it felt like work they couldn’t get to. A lawyer’s appointment, a long form, legal words that felt designed to exclude them. They meant to get around to it. And too often, something happened first.

When someone dies without a well-prepared will, their family doesn’t just grieve. They argue. They guess. They end up in the Court because their mother or father never got round to writing down who should inherit the bach. I’ve sat across the table from those families more times than I can count. It didn’t need to be that way.

DYOdocs is the solution I wished I could offer twenty years ago. It’s a plain-English questionnaire that produces the same quality of document my firm drafts for paying clients — at a fraction of the cost, done from your kitchen table in an evening. The law behind it is the law I’ve practised for five decades. The words on the screen are the words I wish lawyers had been using all along.

I’ve written the trust chapters in LexisNexis’ Law of Trusts since the early 2000s. I co-authored Southern Cook Islands Customary Law, History, and Society with Professor Ron Crocombe. I’m not a tech founder who hired a lawyer — I’m a lawyer who built the tool my clients needed, using Gavel legal document automation.

If your situation is genuinely complex — a blended family with disputes, significant offshore assets, a contested estate — my firm still does that work with full legal advice. But if your situation is like most New Zealanders’, DYOdocs will get your estate plan sorted this weekend. That’s what it’s for.