Estate Planning Attorney Austin: What You Can Check Before You Call

The State Bar of Texas counted 118,430 active attorneys statewide as of December 31, 2025. Only 656 of them held board certification in Estate Planning and Probate Law. That gap matters if you’re searching for an estate planning attorney Austin residents can hire. Most lawyers who draft wills and handle probate are not board certified. That is ordinary, not a warning sign.

Board certification is one of the few credentials in this field you can actually verify. Before you call anyone, two questions help. What does “board certified” actually mean, and what does it leave out? And which court will actually see the paperwork?

What board certification requires of an estate planning attorney Austin residents can verify

The Texas Board of Legal Specialization sets a high bar. An applicant needs at least five years of full-time practice. Those years don’t have to run back to back. In the three years before applying, at least 25% of practice must involve estate planning and probate law. That threshold applies to each of the three years, not just the average. Recertification carries the same 25% requirement, stretched across all five years of the term.

Experience also has to span two separate categories, not just one. Estate planning covers counseling clients and drafting wills, trusts, and powers of attorney. The other category, estate administration and tax matters, covers probate representation, heirship proceedings, and tax controversies. An applicant thin in either category doesn’t qualify.

References matter too. The Board requires five of them. Four must be attorneys substantially involved in estate planning and probate law. The fifth is a judge the applicant has appeared before in a matter in the field. Beyond that, the applicant must pass a written examination. Its format isn’t published, so this article can’t tell you how long it runs or how it’s scored. What is public is the penalty for failing. Three failed attempts bar an applicant from that specialty’s exam for the next three years.

CLE hours never stop. Certification requires 60 hours in the specialty within the three years before applying. Recertification raises that to 100 hours by December 31 of the fifth year. Each certification term runs five years, then the cycle starts over.

What board certification doesn’t tell you about an estate planning attorney Austin residents choose

There is no list of the best estate planning lawyer Austin has. And no rating substitutes for checking the record yourself. Board certification is closer to a floor than a ranking. It confirms a minimum level of experience and testing, not a comparison against every other lawyer in the field.

The math makes the point. Only 656 of Texas’s 118,430 active attorneys hold this certification. Just 6,762 hold board certification in any specialty at all. So the overwhelming majority of lawyers who competently handle wills, trusts, and probate in Texas never sought the credential. Some never needed it for the work their practice does. Others are early in a five-year practice clock that hasn’t yet made them eligible.

None of this means the credential is meaningless. It means it’s one data point, not the whole picture. A newer lawyer who hasn’t hit the five-year mark can still know the Texas Estates Code well. So can a generalist who spends less than 25% of their time in this specialty. Board certification measures a specific track record. It doesn’t measure everything that goes into good representation.

A board-certified lawyer may describe the credential using the Texas Board of Legal Specialization’s own designation. That is a factual statement about a status, not a claim of being better than another lawyer. Certification and general competence are different questions, and one doesn’t answer the other.

The Travis County courts where your documents will actually land

Travis County runs two statutory probate courts: Probate Court No. 1 and Probate Court No. 2. Both exist under § 25.2291(c) of the Government Code. Under § 25.2293(e), the county clerk dockets the cases, not the district clerk. Odd-numbered probate, guardianship, and trust filings go to Court No. 1. Even-numbered filings go to Court No. 2. Mental health matters are Court No. 2’s separate, primary responsibility.

That two-court setup isn’t standard everywhere in Texas. Bexar County runs three statutory probate courts instead of two, under § 25.0171(c) of the same code. So the structure your Travis County probate attorney works within is specific to this county. It isn’t a template every Texas county follows.

Questions worth asking before you hire an estate planning attorney Austin families rely on

A short list of questions can tell you more than a credential ever will. Does the plan rely on independent administration under Estates Code Chapter 401? That structure lets an estate skip most routine court supervision. It applies either because the will authorizes it, or because every heir agrees to it later. Independent administration doesn’t only come from the will itself. After a death, all the distributees can agree unanimously to create it, naming their own independent executor or administrator. For an intestate estate, that agreement only works once the heirs have been formally determined through an heirship proceeding.

There’s a practical question too: how will the estate’s inventory get filed? Texas generally requires a personal representative to file a full inventory within 91 days of qualifying (§ 309.051). An independent executor can sometimes file a simpler affidavit instead. That option applies once debts are paid and beneficiaries already have the detailed numbers (§ 309.056).

What happens if a signed will sits in a drawer for years instead? Texas generally won’t admit a will to probate after four years. The exception: the applicant must show they weren’t at fault for the delay (§ 256.003).

Does the will include a self-proving affidavit? It can be executed as a separate document under § 251.104. Or it can be folded into the same signing session under § 251.1045. That step can spare witnesses a return trip to court later.

None of these questions has one right answer. But an attorney who answers clearly, with specifics instead of reassurance, is telling you something useful. Board certification alone can’t tell you that.

The bottom line

Board certification is checkable, and 656 lawyers statewide have it in this field. That number is small enough to matter and large enough that plenty of well-qualified Austin lawyers fall outside it. The credential tells you what someone had to prove to get it. It doesn’t tell you how your specific estate will move through Travis County’s courts. It also doesn’t confirm whether your plan accounts for the four-year window, independent administration, or a proper self-proving affidavit. Those answers come from the conversation, not the letterhead.

Keep reading: How to Choose the Right Attorney · Revocable Living Trust Arizona

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This article describes attorney credentials and Texas court structure for general information only. It is not legal advice, and it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Awesome Attorneys is an independent directory and does not endorse or rank any attorney or firm. Board certification status and court assignments change, so verify both directly with the State Bar of Texas and the court before relying on them.

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