By Barbara Whittle

Although registrations to participate in this year’s National Wills Week closed in June, last minute registrations can be submitted before mid-July by registering on the Wills Week section on the LSSA website at www.LSSA.org.za or by contacting your provincial law society. Over the past few years National Wills Week has become one of the highlights of the profession’s social outreach and access to justice initiatives. This is thanks to the hundreds of attorneys’ firms that participate in the initiative by giving generously of their time and skills. Wills Week has also attracted increasing coverage in the media, and participation has extended to parastatals, municipalities and charities who have encouraged their staff, residents or benefactors to visit a participating attorney and have a will drafted.

The aim of the Wills Week campaign is twofold –

• to make attorneys’ services better known to the public and improve the image of the profession; and
• to encourage members of the public who would not normally make use of the services of an attorney, or who may hesitate to consult an attorney for fear of the possible high fees, to consult an attorney to draft a basic will.

In 2011 more than 1 000 attorneys’ firms participated in Wills Week and the positive publicity generated for the profession in print and broadcast media amounted to more than half a million rand.

Compiled by Barbara Whittle, communication manager, Law Society of South Africa, barbara@lssa.org.za

This article was first published in De Rebus in 2012 (July) DR 15.