A Casual Conversation on estate planning and administration will be held at 3 pm Eastern on Sunday, December 22. Our conversants will be classmate and attorney Doug Reynolds as well as Kevin Cox, a law firm colleague of classmate Bruce Alpert’s son Jeremy. Doug was recruited by classmate Clint Harris. This session was suggested by classmate Peter Beekman, a retired trust officer.
Every attorney has stories (and it may be all we attorneys have) and my expectation is that the stories to be told at this session will be more illustrative of human folly than most, as per Peter Beekman:
I am suggesting where perhaps things didn’t quite work out. I’m suggesting that the unexpected occurred. I’m suggesting the grandchild beneficiary of a trust who is a convicted felon. I’m suggesting the sisters who fought over a rhododendron bush that cost $1M in legal expenses. I’m talking about the family that possibly disagreed so much that they forfeited over $25M.
And this is just the right time to hear them and to get practical advice (like being as clear as you can and don’t try to micromanage the bequests or the future actions of your legatees), that you probably won’t follow when you are face-to-face with your T&E attorney ready to draft the latest codicil to your will, one that might change as you return to the real world after the latest week of enforced merriment with your family. Be prepared: The week following this Sunday will usher in three family-gathering holidays, Christmas (for the non-Orthodox), Chanukah (same day, starting that evening), and Kwanza (next day), followed in quick succession by secular New Years Eve and Day, and Orthodox Christmas, only after which your Christmas trees will be picked up to turn into mulch. Check out your relations, and decide who gets what, when, and how, although I wouldn’t recommend following King Lear’s approach with his three daughters. Also, you could try to trick one of your family to take on the thankless job of being your executor. See: “Grief, Then Paperwork: The Messy, Thankless Job of an Estate Executor: The role can entail family drama and tracking down heirs” by Ashlea Ebeling (WSJ June 29, 2024). Oliver Wendell Homes had it easy: wife predeceased him and no children. He left his residuary estate to the United States, which placed the Homes Devise in a separate segregated fund to pay for the publication of books about the history of the Supreme Court. The latest volume was just published a year ago:
A new volume in the Oliver Wendell Holmes Devise History of the U.S. Supreme Court offers the definitive history of the Court from 1921 to 1930 when William Howard Taft was chief justice. “The Taft Court: Making Law for a Divided Nation, 1921–1930” recounts the ambivalent effort to create a modern American administrative state out of the institutional innovations of World War I. . . . Published by Cambridge University Press in association with the Library of Congress, “The Taft Court” is available in hardcover ($250) and e-book formats. It can also be accessed online via the Cambridge Core Collection. For more information, visit Cambridge University Press.
But few of us stand with Holmes. And so this session is for you: At one level, if things go-to-hell-in-a-handbasket you won’t be around to see the mess. At another, you might want to try to protect your heirs and your hoped-for distribution of assets from your estate. But either way, you owe it to yourselves, and your precious rhododendron bush-equivalents, to be with us.
Usual rules: let me know at arthur.fergenson@ansalaw.com by this Friday, December 20 at close of business if you want to attend. Bring a libation of your choice.
Arthur Fergenson