What are the ethics of changing lawyers?

There are no ethical concerns whatsoever. They are not friends, they are not family.
They are a service provider, a necessary evil, and they charge an arm and a leg for it.
Change away.

Why do you think she (L1) can’t give you the advice you need? (Sorry about your husband. (((♡

I don’t see any problem with it. You’re not under contract with Lawyer 1 and you can definitely take your will to the new lawyer.

You fulfilled your obligation to L1 when you paid her. It’s perfectly ethical to go to L2 for any additional work you need especially since L2 was recommended by your therapist. It’s feasible that L1 doesn’t even remember who you are considering the number of people she’s counseled since your last visit. She would be asking you basically the exact same Qs as L2 in order to give you the service that you need. Plus, I doubt that L1 & 2 will be discussing their case files at any point.

Thanks for all your comments. (More welcome.) Does my license to use the document as I choose include giving the soft copy of L1’s work to L2?

I’m sensitive to the matter of ownership of work products, text documents in particular, and don’t want to mishandle anything.

@Dutchess_III, to answer your question, several points that L1 incorporated in the doc at my request have come up in discussions with other professionals who immediately pointed out their unenforceability. I want a stronger document than that. I think she should have told me they were bad ideas and suggested better ones.

Loli. “Necessary evil.”
I cannot think of a better term.
Well done.

Firstly, may I express my sincerest condolences over the loss of your husband.

Both you and your husband engaged Lawyer 1 to create your wills presumably to your requirements and you paid Lawyer 1 for her services.

Now your husband is no longer with you it is quite normal for you to want to amend your own will.

Although Lawyer 1 has made a couple of good recommendations for you to think about you don’t owe her any loyalty whatsoever as presumably you paid for the advice you were given.

If you consider another Lawyer will be able to advise you better and is more experienced in producing the type of will you now need there is absolutely no reason why you should not engage Lawyer 2.

Neither is there any problem if you wish to include in you amended will the suggestions given to your from Lawyer 1 .

Good luck.

I think if you have a copy of the Will, you don’t even have to inform the first lawyer that you are writing a new will. You can bring a printed copy to the new lawyer and they work off it. It’s not a copyrighted document so no need to worry. This happens all the time, and the new document takes precedent over the previous document.

@Jeruba Heartfelt condolences for the loss of your husband.

To address your question. 1. remember that best practices for law will change over time. We had certain non-competes drafted at one time, but rulings came out that made them unenforceable. That necessitated changes when we redrafted them. So just because things may be unenforceable now, doesn’t necessarily mean you can conclude they were unenforceable when they were written (though they could have been).

I don’t believe that contracts are copywritable and I don’t think there’s any issue with taking a contract drafted by lawyer 1(and paid for) to lawyer 2 for edits and revisions, if that’s what you’d like to do. I hope that was helpful.

Very helpful responses here. Thank you all very much. I will go ahead and see L2.

Many thanks for the condolences as well. I lost my husband three years ago but haven’t mentioned it much. I still miss him keenly.

Hand your will/trust to Lawyer 2 if you want to save money.
You owe nothing to Lawyer 1 as you’ve already paid him the money.