I never thought my addiction to scrapbooking would be a useful problem solving tool in my law practice but today, it was.

Tomorrow I have clients arriving to formally execute my first Last Will and Testament. After agonizing over the legality of it all and insuring that nothing is getting past their wishes, I sat at my desk staring at the neatly typed language and feeling sad that word processing has taken the fanfare out of trusts and estates. I remembered my T&E professor gently reminding us that our clients would likely only ever commission one will, and that we should make a big deal out of it, take our time with the formal execution, and go through a little drama with the finalization of the document.

Now, larger firms can afford to send their wills out for fancy binding, but I charge my clients about a fourth of market cost for a will, so I really, really can’t.

Which is why I suddenly found myself in the scrapbooking aisle of Hobby Lobby eyeballing a lovely grey linen cardstock and a watermark stamp pad. Hmmm….

It turns out the fancy binding the larger law firms pay for can be mimicked by some heavy high quality card stock, a little bit of glue, and some time. Add to that a custom watermark on each page and suddenly my clients are getting the custom touch the ABC’s firms give them, for about two thousand dollars less. Who knew my scrapbooking addiction would be such a help to me in my new venture?

I am sure, like all my scrapbooking experiences, this particular project will only evolve with time. I am already imagining having my logo made into a custom stamp and watermarking all my legal documents with the office logo. But really, for the first will ever, I have just produced a formally bound, professional document, with a little bit of flair.

It looks nothing like a term paper, it looks nothing like a word document. It’s printed on 24 pound linen paper, and bound with thick linen cardstock. I even designed a case for it, so they can tuck it safely away in their safe deposit box.

Best of all, I got to use glue and paper cutters in the practice of law. My creative side is beaming with joy.