From my wife who recently retired after 30 years paralegal in wills and estates:
Generally as part of the probate process you need to provide evidence in the form of an affidavit that the will was properly executed. That means having one of the witnesses swear an affidavit that they were present with the other witness and saw the testator sign their will. That affidavit is one of the documents that gets filed at the court during the probate application. If you don’t have two witnesses, the will may not be valid or a Court application may be necessary to validate the will (which would require a lawyer). Lawyers may be willing to charge a hourly rate for preparing the application instead of a percentage of the estate value or the executor can prepare and submit the documents themselves. In my experience, by the time the application is accepted and granted by the Court the executor will have wished they used a lawyer. There are other steps that are necessary for the executor (like filing the final / terminal tax returns and reporting to beneficiaries), that a lawyer would help with and which would protect the executor from claims of wrongdoing (mistakes). Once you act as an executor (take any steps) you have to finish the job so you may want to know what you’re getting into before you do anything.
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