Short answer: in about a dozen states, you don't get a choice — state law requires a licensed attorney to be involved in your closing, full stop. Everywhere else, a title company alone is legal and standard, and hiring your own attorney is optional. Whether that option is worth the money depends less on the state and more on how much you trust the contract you're about to sign.
States where you're legally required to have one
As of early 2026, attorney involvement is required by law (not just common practice) in these states: Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Vermont, and West Virginia — with Kentucky also frequently listed as requiring attorney involvement in title work (HomeLight, DocJacket, Retipster). A handful of others — Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota, and Rhode Island show up across sources too, though they're sometimes described as requiring an attorney for a specific piece (like certifying title) rather than running the whole closing.
The exact list isn't perfectly consistent across the sources that track it, and the details can hinge on county-level practice or which specific task ("must examine title" vs. "must conduct the closing") a given state's rule actually covers. New Jersey is its own wrinkle: attorney review is customary in the northern part of the state and much less common in the south. If you're buying in any of these states, or somewhere near the border of one, don't take an article's word for it — confirm the current rule with your real estate agent or a local attorney before you assume you can skip one.
In the other roughly three dozen states — including big markets like California, Texas, Florida, Arizona, and most of the Midwest — a title or escrow company handling the closing on its own is completely normal and legal. No attorney required, and plenty of buyers close there without ever talking to one.
What a title company does vs. what an attorney adds
We cover what a title/escrow company actually does during closing in a companion piece — the short version is they handle the title search, the paperwork, and moving money and signatures across the finish line. What they generally don't do is act as your advocate if something in the deal looks off.
A real estate attorney adds a few things a title company structurally can't, because a title company is a neutral party to the transaction, not your representative:
- Reviewing the contract before you sign, not after. Title companies process what's already agreed to. An attorney reads the purchase agreement itself and can flag a clause that favors the seller before you're locked in.
- Negotiating on your behalf. If a lawyer catches something that shouldn't be in the contract, they can push back on it directly — that's leverage a title company has no standing to use, since they're not on your side of the table.
- Handling anything non-standard. Complex FSBO deals with no listing agent involved, title problems (liens, boundary disputes, an estate sale with unclear ownership), or an actual dispute mid-transaction are all situations where a title company will typically tell you to go get a lawyer anyway.
None of that is theoretical. It's the kind of thing that shows up in real closings: a buyer's attorney once caught language letting the seller push back the closing date indefinitely — not actually enforceable in that buyer's state — and used it as leverage to knock a few thousand dollars off the price for the seller's delays. That's the case for having your own attorney read the contract in plain terms: catching a bad clause before you sign is worth more than catching it after.
The counterpoint: not every contract has room for surprises
Here's the nuance that keeps this from being a universal "always hire a lawyer" answer: many states use a standardized, "promulgated" purchase contract, drafted and maintained by that state's real estate commission (often with its own attorneys involved in writing it). In those states, the form itself is heavily pre-vetted, agents are limited in what they can add or change, and the room for a sneaky clause to slip through is much smaller than in a state where contracts are drafted more freely deal-by-deal. Add in that larger brokerages often carry their own legal review as a matter of course, and the marginal value of paying for your own attorney on a completely standard deal, in a state with a standardized form, is genuinely lower than it would be on a one-off, freely drafted contract.
That doesn't mean a promulgated-contract state makes an attorney pointless — it mainly narrows what an attorney is protecting you from. Standard forms don't cover unusual title history, a contentious FSBO seller, or a deal that goes sideways mid-escrow. It's less "do I need a lawyer, yes or no" and more "how standardized is what I'm about to sign" — worth asking your agent directly whether your state uses a promulgated contract before you decide.
What it costs
For a straightforward residential closing, a real estate attorney typically runs $750–$1,250 flat fee, or $150–$600 an hour if billed hourly, depending on the state and the attorney's experience (ListWithClever, updated July 2026). If the attorney is running the entire closing in-house instead of just reviewing documents alongside a title company, that climbs to roughly $1,500–$3,000. In attorney-required states, this cost is essentially baked into closing costs either way, since you don't have the option to skip it.
Bottom line
If you're buying in an attorney-required state, this isn't really a decision — budget for it. If you're in a title-company-only state, the honest tradeoff is: a title company will get the transaction closed correctly, but it won't tell you if a clause in your contract quietly favors the seller. For a completely standard purchase on a standardized state contract, going title-company-only is a defensible, common choice. For anything unusual — a FSBO deal, a complicated title, a seller who's already acting cagey — a few hundred dollars for an attorney to read the contract before you sign is cheap insurance against the one clause that costs you a lot more later.