I was wondering when you would say something about this portion of your education. The firm I work at does a TON of estate planning, filing wills and estate affidavits with probate court, etc. I actually really like it. Even when we were learning about contracts and estate planning in school, everything came really easily for me.
I can't think of a more important thing that anyone with heirs and assets needs to take care of. A lot of people don't want to think about death, or what will happen once they die. However, in creating a will, etc., you aren't really thinking about yourself. You're making sure that everything will go easier for your loved ones. Also, just because you told someone to make sure that so-and-so who is like a child to you get such-and-such, even if you know the person would, if you don't leave a will or have a trust set up, or do the TOD's, your assets go through probate. If you have debts, that such-and-such that you intended so-and-so to get may end up being liquidated to pay creditors. I could go on and on about the importance of this stuff, but 1) I am not a lawyer, so I can't give you legal advice or explain in too much detail what you should do, and 2) this post would become far too long to read.
And I didn't even get into powers of attorney, and such.