A Voice in Wills Reform: adeus on Advocacy, Westminster and the Stalled Wills Bill

adeus was built on the belief that the law would eventually catch up with how people actually live, so we have spent as much energy on shaping that reform as on building for it. Mark Hedley, our Co-Founder and COO, writes for The National Law Review, the US legal publication, on the UK's stalled electronic Wills reform, most recently in "One Year and Counting: What the UK's Missed Electronic Wills Deadline Means for Reform", which drew on our own analysis of the Law Commission's proposals.

We are not commentators on the sidelines. Mark and Nick signed the industry open letter, alongside cross-party MPs, urging the government to accelerate its response to the Law Commission's wills reform report, and adeus was the first UK member of the LIVE Coalition, the Washington DC based advocacy group pushing for modernisation across the estate planning sector. That gives us a genuinely cross-border view of reform, since the US states already permitting electronic Wills are a useful preview of the questions England and Wales will eventually have to answer.

That advocacy happens in the room as well as in print. Nick Adams, our Co-Founder and CEO, used this week's Labour Party Conference to put the stalled Bill directly in front of government, attending the Labour Tech Networking event organised by Startup Coalition, set up specifically for founders to meet government officials:
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"I went to lobby politicians for an update on the proposed Wills Bill. The MPs I spoke to were genuinely engaged, and more than one thought it was 'ludicrous' that a Will still has to be executed on paper with a wet signature. One MP felt the legislation was too important to disappear and said she'd be happy to raise it as a parliamentary question to Sarah Sackman, to keep it on the agenda."

Nick Adams, Co-Founder and CEO, adeus

It also shapes how we build. Our running analysis of the reform process sets out why we designed True Wills™ around authenticity, security and integrity, the same three tests the Law Commission's draft Bill uses for a "reliable system", so that when electronic Wills do become law, adeus is ready rather than retrofitted.

We will keep publishing as the government's response, whenever it arrives, moves through Parliament. Our latest piece for The National Law Review, Defining a "Reliable System": How the UK Law Commission Proposes to Regulate Electronic Wills, sets out the Law Commission's three tests for a US legal audience, and Innovate UK Smart Grant: The R&D Behind True Wills shows how we built to meet them.