Prestige has announced an estate planning signing support service that integrates document printing, binder assembly, and delivery by a notary directly to the signer. The service, offered through Prestige Notaries, extends the company's existing signing coordination to include preparation of the organized document package used during trust signings. This matters because it shifts time-consuming administrative tasks away from estate planning firm staff, allowing them to focus on higher-value legal work and client interaction.
The service originated with a client that was assembling tabbed trust binders internally and paying to ship them. Prestige took over ordering binders and tabs, printing documents, organizing and sealing materials, and arranging for a notary to bring the completed package to the signer. Under this arrangement, the firm no longer needed to assemble binders or absorb shipping costs. The development reflects an approach described by Jennifer Garland, founder, President and CEO of Prestige Companies: listening to a client's specific operational needs and building support around those needs. In this case, a process created for one firm became a service offered more broadly.
Garland founded Prestige in 2015 after working as a paralegal at the Washington State Attorney General's office and managing a mortgage company. Her mortgage industry experience exposed a need for streamlined processes and hand-vetted notaries. Prestige Notaries was established to address that need and today serves banks, corporations, and law firms, with a database of more than 260,000 notaries across all 50 states.
Independent professionals are central to the company's service model. Garland describes the notaries and field agents working with Prestige as small business owners whose independence remains important to the relationship. Her approach emphasizes helping those professionals become self-sufficient contractors rather than dependent on the company. Support includes clear expectations, access to resources, and ongoing communication with the service team.
Prestige Notaries maintains a foundational set of standard operating procedures across industries and clients. Training addresses those standards and their application, while ongoing conversations with the service team inform procedural changes when circumstances require them. The company pairs that structure with a consistent vetting process for every notary it places, regardless of location or client assignment.
Notarial law varies by state, and Prestige has built a library of state-by-state guides for its team. The guides provide a reference for jurisdiction-specific requirements without requiring team members to rely on memory. Together with training and vetting, the library forms part of the operational support behind assignments involving professionals in different states.
The company's assignment history includes requests requiring substantial travel coordination. For an executive attending a retreat on a remote Alaskan island, Prestige arranged for a notary and field agent to travel by float plane, remain on the island for several days, obtain the signature, and return the document on time. Flights reached the island only twice weekly, making transportation schedules part of the assignment planning. A separate assignment in another remote part of Alaska required a notary to meet a guide and travel by snowmobile to a mile marker to reach the signer. Prestige has also coordinated a commercial signing involving 17 signers across five cities and three time zones, with the signings taking place simultaneously.
Administrative coordination also includes shipment tracking within the platform used by Prestige. The team and clients can track shipments without leaving that platform or calling a carrier for an update. The estate planning service applies a similar approach to the physical preparation and delivery of signing materials, combining Prestige's existing signing coordination with a defined document preparation workflow. Its scope covers binders, tabs, printed materials, organization, sealing, and delivery, placing those tasks within the assignment handled by Prestige and its field professionals rather than retaining binder assembly as an internal responsibility of the estate planning firm. This shift could significantly reduce overhead and free up staff for more strategic tasks, making the service a notable development for firms seeking efficiency.
