Featured Course: Introduction to Estate Signings
An Introduction to Estate Signings
A five-part course introducing notaries to estate signing ceremonies, commonly encountered documents, professional responsibilities, and the boundaries of the notarial role.
Specialized Training & Business Labs
Don't Invite Oopal (UPL)
Build Your Business Skills
Build Your Business Skills
A two-hour, scenario-based course examining unauthorized practice of law, professional boundaries, and the questionable decisions of a fictional rogue notary.
Build Your Business Skills
Build Your Business Skills
Build Your Business Skills
Live courses and workshops covering professional visibility, marketing, technology, and business development. Each course includes its own instructional materials and recordings.
Topics include LinkedIn for Estate Signing Professionals, Canva, and Notary Profile Optimization.
Why Specialize in Trust & Estate Signings?
Your Mindset. Your Mission. Your Specialty.
Estate planning documents represent families, assets, wishes, and legacies. The notary at the table needs more than familiarity with a signature line. This work calls for preparation, sound judgment, clear communication, and care for the people signing.
You may be sitting with a couple planning for retirement, an individual preparing for an unexpected medical situation, or a family gathering around a loved one in hospice. Each appointment brings its own circumstances. Your ability to arrive prepared, maintain a calm signing environment, and recognize when to pause and contact the preparing attorney matters.
Developing this specialty helps you build consistent signing practices, navigate sensitive environments, and work professionally with estate planning attorneys. It also means understanding your limits. You guide the signing process within your authorized role while leaving legal explanations and advice to the attorney.
Trust and estate signing work can also give your business a focused direction beyond loan signings. It does not depend on housing sales or interest rates. Individuals and families work with estate planning professionals throughout the year to protect themselves, provide for those they love, and prepare for the future. Serving them well creates opportunities to build lasting professional relationships based on preparation, reliability, and trust.
The title of Dean’s second best-selling book, “People’s Lives in Ink on Paper,” captures the responsibility behind this work. The names on those pages belong to the people sitting across from you. Their documents reflect personal decisions about who they trust, what they value, and how they want their wishes carried forward. Remembering that changes how you prepare, how you communicate, and how you show up.
CESP supports your development through community, practical education, and an optional certification pathway. Whether you are exploring estate signings or making this work your specialty, the goal is to help you serve with greater knowledge, professional judgment, and care. Those who successfully complete all certification requirements earn the Certified Estate Signing Professional designation.
Your Mindset. Your Mission. Your Specialty.
Some Words from CESP Graduates
Josetta Lopez, Josetta's Signings
Paula Gordon, Aspire Professional Signing Solutions
Paula Gordon, Aspire Professional Signing Solutions
“Dean’s course filled those gaps—and gave me so much more. He brings his knowledge and real-world experience into every lesson, using practical examples, detailed instruction, and hands-on learning to help everything come together.”
Josetta Lopez, CESP
First Certified Estate Signing Professional Graduate, Website
Paula Gordon, Aspire Professional Signing Solutions
Paula Gordon, Aspire Professional Signing Solutions
Paula Gordon, Aspire Professional Signing Solutions
“The course was well organized and filled with practical information. I appreciated Dean's ability to explain complex topics clearly and provide valuable insight that went beyond simply teaching a course.”
Paula Gordon, CESP
Diane Padilla, Padilla Notary
Tina Marie Kuklinski, Notary Tina
Tina Marie Kuklinski, Notary Tina
"In this course, I learned that estate signings are not just routine processing of documents. Instead, you are taught step by step how to conduct a structured estate signing ceremony where you will lead the signing with intention, clarity, and professionalism.”
Diane Padilla, CESP, Wesbite
Tina Marie Kuklinski, Notary Tina
Tina Marie Kuklinski, Notary Tina
Tina Marie Kuklinski, Notary Tina
“Dean’s 18-week CESP course was the most extensive, practical, and preparation-focused training I’ve completed. His guidance on document flow, professional boundaries, and real-world signing scenarios gave me the confidence I needed for my first estate signing ceremony.”
Tina Marie Kuklinski, CESP, Website