Ahead of Indigenous Peoples’ Day, free estate-planning clinics offer help

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Sitting around tables in the Southeastern Oneida Tribal Service Office in Milwaukee over the weekend, small groups of Marquette Law School students, attorneys and tribal members were talking about death. Yet what sounded like somber discussion provided relief for many, as they were completing estate planning documents. 

The Urban Wills Caravan travels around Wisconsin to offer free estate-planning services to American Indians. The nonprofit Wisconsin Judicare’s Indian Law Office, attorneys who volunteer their time, and law school students from UW Law School, Marquette Law School and Columbia Law School in New York provide the free services.

The caravan travels to reservations in northern Wisconsin for one week each spring. Howard Bichler, Indian law office manager and attorney for Wisconsin Judicare, said he learned some clients were driving 150 miles each way to attend a free session at one of the reservations. Bichler said he wanted to make services more accessible to southern Wisconsin residents and scheduled an Urban Wills Caravan stop in Milwaukee. 

Bichler and his office worked with Marquette Law for the two-day event, which was held Oct. 11 and 12 at the Southeastern Oneida Tribal Service Office. Angela Schultz, assistant dean for public service at Marquette Law, said this is the second time the school has worked with the Urban Wills Caravan.

“The student response was fast and high interest,” Schultz said. “People were really interested in getting involved and learning how the law was different through the federal code versus through state law, and I very quickly had a full volunteer roster.”

Before the caravan’s two-day stop, Marquette Law students went through a two-hour training session and learned about the federal and state probates they may encounter when working on wills for tribal members. 

“There are specific issues to Indian law that we went over that they might not have been exposed to,” Bichler said. “There’s the potential for individuals to own interest in trust land, and the feds are involved in probating those land interests. [Students] probably wouldn’t learn that in their estate planning class.”

Each student works under the supervision of an attorney, advising clients on wills, powers of attorney, living wills and the disposition of remains documents. Bichler said end-of-life documents are some of the most important discussed with these clients.

“They’re very detailed and very important to people,” said Bichler. “A lot of their beliefs are very specific and have to be carried out. We try to make it a little easier for the tribal people, and we also try to incorporate any cultural norms they have.”

Students and attorneys spent about an hour and a half with each client on Friday and Saturday — trying to provide all of them with a fully executed will by the end of the session. One woman left her session smiling, thanking attorneys and students for their help. 

The first-year Marquette law student Rebecca Shepro said the woman had attended a previous Urban Wills Caravan meeting but wasn’t able to complete her documents. She had been waiting for another free clinic to put the finishing touches on her estate plans, and Shepro helped guide her through those steps.

“It feels good to help the greater community,” said Shepro. 

Over the two days, about 25 clients completed their wills and other estate planning documents with help from the student-attorney teams.

“It’s one of the best things we do,” said Bichler. “We make them happy because they got it done, and they’ve been thinking about it for a long time. In my experience, it’s so important for survivors to know. It makes it a little easier.” Follow @WLJReporter