Two witnesses are also needed to appoint someone with powers of attorney. One must be a lawyer, medical practitioner or other qualified witness and neither can be a relative. But the limits on reasons people can leave home, restrictions on the number of people they can be out with, and the need for older people to self-isolate to protect themselves have made the act of signing and witnessing the crucial documents difficult. “It can be a challenge for some people who are over 70 and are self-isolating and don’t know their neighbours very well. It can be a great challenge for them,” Law Institute of Victoria accredited specialist in wills and estates Kathy Wilson said. State Attorney-General Jill Hennessy has flagged changes to allow alternative ways for people to sign legal documents, but in the meantime, “we have to think outside the square a bit”, Ms Wilson said.

Based in Deepdene in Melbourne’s east, she said she had met clients in their cars and witnessed documents through the car window. Clients have been encouraged to get their neighbours to witness over the back fence, while Ms Wilson knows of a lawyer who witnessed documents for a client quarantined in hospital through a glass window into their room. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video Ms Wilson had a new client in a nursing home and after talking through options to get their documents witnessed, found out another resident was a justice of the peace and used them. The JP has since become a “very popular” member of the facility. "It's a reminder to people that the virus does attack people of all ages and there is no point thinking it doesn’t matter, it’s never going to happen to me, I don’t need a will or power of attorney," Ms Wilson said.

The Law Institute of Victoria has called on the state government to clarify that lawyers are an essential service and to amend legislation to allow signing of documents to occur over video-conferencing during the pandemic. “Wills take a lot of judgment from the practitioner because we need to assess whether the client has capacity and whether the client is influenced. A video call doesn’t prevent you from doing that for our clients, who we know well,” Ms Fleer said. Ms Wilson supported the introduction of video witnessing, but only as a short-term and emergency measure, cautioning that it could be difficult to judge if a client was unduly influenced or pressured. Sign up to our Coronavirus Update newsletter Get our Coronavirus Update newsletter for the day's crucial developments at a glance, the numbers you need to know and what our readers are saying. Sign up to The Sydney Morning Herald's newsletter here and The Age's here. “A lawyer’s duty is to satisfy themselves one way or another a person is freely making the will. There are increasing instances of financial elder abuse, and preparation of wills is one area where elderly people are very vulnerable,” she said.