The Price of Prevention vs. The Cost of Cure

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, or so they say.  I've found this especially true in the legal field.  Too often business partners opt to use Legal Zoom to organize an LLC or incorporate with the goal of "saving money on lawyers."  It's true that Legal Zoom is cheaper but it won't point out the wisdom of a shareholder's agreement or operating agreement which spell out things like what happens when a member/shareholder dies, gets divorced, or simply wants out or what happens when there's not enough money to keep the lights on.

I estimate that, over my career, I've personally billed over $1,000,000 to help resolve shareholder/member disputes that could have easily been prevented by spending a few thousand dollars up-front on an appropriate shareholder/operating agreement.  While I'm sure there are plenty of businesses which incorporate/organize without legal assistance and don't have financially-crippling meltdowns, I don't see those as a litigator.  I only see the broken ones and, cynically, those are a good source of revenue.

Yesterday, I ran into a new example of an ounce of prevention being worth a pound (or, in this case, several million GBP) of cure.  This one stung.  Eccentric rich guy has long time female companion.  They never marry but are in business together.  Eccentric guy has the skills but no business sense, so he relies on the companion to actually run the business.  They drift apart, but he needs her to stay afloat, so they continue to reside together.

Beginning in or around 2002, rich guy falls in love with another woman.  She's younger but not that much younger and is far from a trophy wife.  Their connection is based on shared eccentricities.  I'm convinced the connection was authentic.  Rich guy, who had no prior estate plan, has his business attorney draft him a pour-over will and a trust which leaves the business, a residence, and miscellaneous property to the companion and slightly more to the new love.  

Over the next ten years or so until his death, rich guy decides he wants to increase the gifts to the new love on a couple different occasions.  However, instead of going back to an attorney, he asks new love to retype the existing estate plan and make changes.  She does exactly what she's told but, because she never married the rich guy (despite being intimate for 17 years) and because rich guy continued to sleep at the residence he shared with female companion, some quirks in the law created a presumption that all gifts to new love in the trusts she retyped were the product of undue influence.

You can see where this went after the rich guy's death.  It was not pretty and I'm convinced the rich guy would not have wanted to leave such a shitbomb after his passing.  Had he spent a collective $5,000 on attorneys (and his estate was worth 8 figures), all of this would have been avoided.

This was, by far, the most expensive, unfortunate prevention v. cure botched analysis I've seen.  What about you all?