Just prior to Christmas, I was lucky enough to be a guest on the latest episode of Trust Me!: the podcast presented by the Trusts and Estates Section of…
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No Such Thing as a Free Ride: Section 859 Awards Can Now Go To Whoever Does the Work
Newcomers to probate litigation are frequently surprised by how differently things work in probate court, as opposed to your more straightforward civil courts. (And how do those newcomers know how civil…
Didn’t Stick the Landing: Despite Legal Artistry, You Still Can’t Amend a Trust with an Electronic Signature
Regular readers of this blog have already noted my particular enthusiasm for creativity in legal arguments. I am not a judge (Hi Judge Galvin!), but if I were, I would…
Flying Too Close to the Sun: The Scope of a No-Contest Clause Disinheritance Under Key v. Tyler
This blog has previously mentioned the most common question we hear when people find out we work in probate litigation: “What can I do to make sure my family doesn’t…
Haggerty v. Thornton Overcomes a Four-on-One Advantage and Scores a Slam Dunk for Trust Settlors
For centuries, serious legal scholars have debated what is possibly the most vital question of our times: in what ways, if any, does our judicial system differ from basketball? Now…
As a child, your parents, teachers, and/or some other adult influence probably sat you down and recounted Aesop’s classic fable, The Tortoise and the Hare. “Slow and steady wins…
Experts Beware: Estate of Martino and a Zen Buddhist Approach to Intestate Succession
I am not an expert on Zen Buddhism. However, even if I had spent decades of my life studying its tenets (instead of, for example, baseball stats from the 1920’s…
It’s the Halloween season, a time when most of us spend a more-than-reasonable amount of time focusing on the spookier side of things: ghosts, goblins, small children dressed like jack-o-lanterns…
You’ve probably heard that “He who represents himself has a fool for a client,” an adage dating back to the 17th century and commonly attributed to Abraham Lincoln (but not…
Tyson Hubbard and I launched this blog in November 2015, and today’s post will be number 200. As the years have passed, my colleagues and I have written about new…
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About this Blog
Welcome to our trust and estate litigation blog. Inheritance disputes are on the rise nationally as the baby boomers age and wealth passes from one generation to the next. This is high-stress litigation, often pitting sibling against sibling or second spouse against step-children.