For solicitors and legal practitioners involved in drafting wills, or the probate work that follows.

The Wills Workshop is a one-day, in-person CPD course for solicitors and legal practitioners who draft wills, or handle the probate work that follows.

One full day carries 6 General CPD hours, all completed in-person, fulfilling your entire group study requirement for the year.

The day moves the way a file does: from taking instructions, through what the Probate Office actually requires, to a finished draft reviewed at the table. Everything runs on a working instruction sheet and a fictitious testator. You draft in small groups, compare versions, and correct against what the Probate Office will and won't accept.

We start with proper instructions, worked line by line through a precedent instruction sheet, alongside the Succession Act provisions that matter in practice: advancement, debt on property, appropriation and predeceased issue. From there we turn to what the Probate Office looks for in a valid will: attestation, capacity, whether it is truly the last will, and whether the right person is making the application.

You'll leave able to:

Take cleaner instructions and cut risk at the front end

Draft what the Probate Office accepts first time

Handle foreign assets and cross-border issues

Apply intestacy, clearing-off and substitution

Build a precedent library that survives scrutiny

The day closes with a hands-on drafting exercise in small groups, including a foreign element and a charitable bequest. You take the recommended draft home, with the precedents and checklists ready for the office on Monday morning.

Both practitioners, a practising solicitor and a Probate Office veteran of more than twenty years, are on hand at every table through the day.

Description supplied by the event organiser.