John Wick - What You Need To Know about the Corporate Transparency Act
Once Removed Episode 24: Expressing Goals and Intent for the Trust
Once Removed Episode 22: Building Flexibility into the Estate Plan
Once Removed Episode 20: Helping a Beneficiary Purchase a Home
Once Removed Episode 19: The Step-Transaction Doctrine and the Case of Smaldino
Next Generation Legacy Management - The Essence of Developing, Managing and Implementing a Plan for Future Generations
A Primer On Trusts - A Podcast with Janathan Allen
Once Removed Episode 13: It’s 5 o’Clock: Do You Know Where Your Will Is? A Lesson From Aretha Franklin
Charitable Bequests With Guest Stephanie Hood
Once Removed Episode 12: SLATs and the Case of McKim vs. McKim
Once Removed Episode 11: Spousal Lifetime Access Trusts, or SLATs
Digital Planning Podcast Episode: Family Office Technology Solutions
Digital Planning Podcast Episode: The Uniform Electronic Estate Planning Documents Act
What is a self-proving affidavit?
The Importance of Beneficiary Designations
Basics of Estate Planning
The Case of the Disappearing Trust
Protecting Your Estate Plan from Challenges: No-Contest Clause Explained
The Secret Child
Welcome to 'Splitting Heirs'
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 fight over my property after I die?” Because I am a...more
The Michigan Court of Appeals recently issued a decision that addresses how much evidence is necessary for a will or trust contestant to carry burden of proof. In this case, the decedent, Matthew, entered an assisted living...more
Undue influence occurs when an influencer uses improper influence (e.g., coercion, mind-poisoning, manipulation, threats) to cause the victim to execute a document that they would not have done, but for the undue influence....more
David F. Johnson participated in a panel presentation entitled “The Baby-Boomer Generation & The Largest Succession of Wealth in History: The New Frontier in Asset Recovery?” for the Offshore Alert Miami Conference on April...more
As the New York Times reported in December, “ChatGPT is, quite simply, the best artificial intelligence chatbot ever released to the general public.” Built by OpenAI, a San Francisco-based company, ChatGPT has grabbed...more
No contest clauses generally are not enforceable against beneficiaries of California trusts when there is “probable cause” to challenge the trust instrument. Yet the probable cause safe harbor may disappear if the contest...more
California law is surprisingly unclear as to whether the notes of an estate planning attorney are protected from discovery by the attorney work product doctrine. This can become a big issue in a will or trust contest when the...more
Drafting an estate plan allows a person to put into writing their wishes for division of assets upon death. Sometimes this means making a choice to give more to one child over the other, or to completely write out natural...more
California trust and estate disputes often feature claims by one sibling that another gained a larger share by unduly influencing a parent. When there are factors suggesting undue influence, who should bear the burden of...more
In this podcast, JAMS neutrals Hon. Glen Reiser (Ret.) and Lisbeth Bulmash, Esq., discuss how the pandemic and a shifting landscape around wealth transfers is fueling increased trusts and estates disputes. They weigh in on...more
The thrifty do-it-yourselfers among us might jump at the opportunity to transfer their family home to their kids while avoiding probate and the expense of creating a trust. Revocable Transfer on Death Deeds, or RTODDs, have...more
A recent decision from the California Court of Appeal shows a continued split of authority as to the meaning of California Probate Code section 859, which allows doubles damages for the wrongful taking of property under...more
Intentional interference with expected inheritance (IIEI) was recognized as a legal claim in California about eight years ago in Beckwith v. Dahl (2012) 205 Cal.App.4th 1039. Last week, the Court of Appeal issued the first...more
Producers, writers, and reporters have long been fascinated with high-stakes wealth, estate and trusts, and shareholder disputes. Whether tragic or comic, the drama between clients, families, business partners, as well as the...more
Last week the California Supreme Court used a conservatorship case to clarify how appellate courts should review the sufficiency of evidence when the trial court applied the clear and convincing evidence standard. In...more
Creators of trusts (also known as settlors or trustors) usually think long and hard about how their property should pass when they die. It’s therefore common for trustors, or their lawyers, to incorporate protective...more
David F. Johnson, lead writer for the Texas Fiduciary Litigator blog, discusses the enforceability of arbitration, forum-selection, and jury-waiver clauses in trust and will disputes as well as other related issues associated...more
There has been considerable discussion regarding including arbitration clauses in estate planning documents over recent years. Some estate and trust attorneys are actively pushing for the inclusion of such clauses. Recently,...more
Last week the California Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion in Barefoot v. Jennings (2020) ___ Cal.5th ___, ruling that a trust beneficiary disinherited in an amendment may contest the amendment’s validity in the...more
It is widely understood in California that inherited assets, unlike assets earned from labor, are the separate property of the receiving spouse. But what if the assets do not come directly from a parent and instead pass from...more
Probate Code section 859, our subject in a recent post, packs a punch in California trust litigation. It awards double damages against someone who in bad faith wrongfully takes property from an elder, in bad faith takes...more
Many California financial elder abuse cases we see involve caregivers. While the vast majority are honest, a caregiver who spends many hours alone with a vulnerable client has a unique opportunity to exploit the situation. A...more
In "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People," Stephen Covey wrote that we should "begin with the end in mind." In the context of an estate plan, this means that we must consider how that plan will be carried out once it has...more
No contest clauses are included in wills and trusts to discourage dissatisfied beneficiaries from challenging the document’s validity. Because enforcement of these clauses results in disinheritance, the California Probate...more
Mental capacity issues are commonplace in California trust and probate litigation. Jonathan Canick, Ph.D., who spoke last year at the Sacramento Estate Planning Council on the subject of “Aging, Cognition and Capacity,”...more