Help navigating the estate of my mom who recently passed away

At the beginning of this month, my mother passed away very unexpectedly. Prior to her passing, however, she had been very meticulous about organizing her will and estate. She's leaving everything to myself and my two siblings, to be split evenly. The only thing that is not included in her estate is a beneficiary IRA she received from HER mom that will also pass down to us. My Aunt, her older sister, was named executor of her will and has been doing as good as someone with no legal experience can. However she has been feeling increasingly overwhelmed, which is very understandable.

Right when she passed we visited with a lawyer to handle everything. However, while he was extremely nice, he didn't communicate well, misunderstood many questions, and was taking several minutes to input our names on the computer (typing with one finger). At $300/hour, we felt uncomfortable using his services. He was very understanding and suggested some DIY legal sites if we wanted to handle it ourselves.

All four of us (her three children and my aunt) are very in the dark about this whole process, in terms of whether the estate has to go to probate, what probate actually accomplishes, the timeline for getting this sorted, taxes, etc. There are some pertinent facts as well which I will list below. However, if possible and if not too painless, we are considering trying to handle this without a lawyer. There is no internal conflict between any family members which would require any type of legal authority. We all love my mother immensely and this horrible ordeal has brought all of us even closer than we already were. I also had a brief stint in law school so I am comfortable reading and interpreting legalese, if need be.

So I guess my question is, is it realistic to attempt to go lawyer-less, or will it be more trouble than it's worth? Are there many intricacies which require special care for the whole process of distributing her estate?

Some pertinent facts:

• She had residence and also died in Colorado.

• All of her children (aged mid 20's) live in Georgia.

• My aunt, the executor, lives in Washington.

• In addition to property and bank accounts, she also is leaving us her 401k, her beneficiary IRA passed down from her mother, her home (which has been on the market and will likely soon sell), and an investment account.

Also, if anyone has advice on how much my aunt should be paying herself for taking care of all this please let me know. I have a feeling she will try to refuse any type of compensation but this whole thing has been such a burden on her emotionally and in terms of putting a strain on her schedule that it wouldn't be right for her to not be paid. My siblings and I are doing what we can to help her out but there's certain things only she can do as the executor of my mom's estate.

Thank you in advance for the advice and taking the time to offer input.