IT’S A RULE…

“A lawyer shall not… prepare on behalf of a client an instrument giving the lawyer or a person related to the lawyer any substantial gift unless the lawyer or other recipient of the gift is related to the client.”  That’s rule 1.8(c) of the Arizona Rules of Professional Conduct.
In other words, your lawyer can’t prepare your will if the will is going to include a “substantial” gift to that lawyer or a member of his or her family.  It’s a pretty clear rule, in my opinion.  
Why am I bringing it up?  Because a colleague who is also licensed in another state alerted me to an order of the supreme court of that state dealing with a violation of the same rule.  The rule didn’t stop a lawyer in that state from (1) preparing a will that made a gift to the lawyer’s wife, and (2) attempting to conceal that the recipient of the gift was, in fact, his wife.  I don’t know how it turned out for his wife, but it didn’t turn out well for the lawyer.