Category Archives: Succession
Horton, Weisbord and Ryan, ‘The Trust Transfer Problem’
ABSTRACT For decades, a single tactic has dominated American estate planning. By transferring assets to a revocable living trust (‘rev trust’), individuals can bypass the notoriously slow, expensive, and public probate system. But because rev trusts operate privately, there is no data on how well they function. This Article conducts the first empirical study of […]
Gordon and Spivack, ‘Donative Freedom, Disrupted’
ABSTRACT You can do what you want with your property at death – and after – because it is ‘yours’. This is the ‘fundamental guiding principle’ of American succession law today. Despite occasional criticism over the years, for example, that it goes too far in allowing parents to disinherit children, legal scholars, courts, law reformers, […]
Weisbord and Sterk, ‘Joint Bank Accounts: Who Needs Them?’
ABSTRACT Joint bank accounts, once known as a ‘poor man’s will’, emerged more than a century ago as a probate avoidance device. This Article contends that joint accounts no longer serve a useful estate planning function, and they pose an unacceptably high risk to banking consumers because the legal framework governing lifetime ownership rights is […]
Call for Papers: Estates, Trusts and Pensions Journal conference, Vancouver, 19-20 February 2026
The Estates, Trusts and Pensions Journal is inviting paper proposals for a conference, to be held February 19-20, 2026 at the Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia. We invite paper proposals on any theme having to do with Estates, Trusts or Pensions. Here follows a non-exclusive list of potential topics, divided into broader […]
Cressida Auckland, ‘Reforming Testamentary Capacity: The Problem of Disorder’
ABSTRACT After many delays, the Law Commission is due to publish its final report on the law governing wills in early 2025. In it, it is expected that it will propose amendments to the test for testamentary capacity, in order to bring it in line with the test for capacity under the Mental Capacity Act […]
Recently Published: Falconer, Barker and Fell (eds), Life and Death in Private Law
Private law regulates life; this is self-evident, but how does it regulate death? This edited collection explores this question. Life and death are the beginning and end of the legal person: the instigator and terminator of rights, interests and obligations. They are also the nominal separator of particular fields of law (medical law from succession […]
‘Marcus v Marcus: can a non-biological child be “a child of the settlor”?’
In the recent judgment of Marcus v Marcus [2024] EWHC 2086, Master Marsh found that the words ‘the children and remoter issue of the Settlor’ in a settlement meant the two adult sons of the settlor, even though (unbeknownst to the settlor during his lifetime) one of his sons was not biologically his child. The […]
‘The Doctrine of Public Policy and Discrimination in the Private Law: A Small Light in an Era of Darkness’, Jane Thompson, Zoom, 17 January 2025
The next session of the Tort Law and Social Equality Project Speakers Series takes place on Friday, January 17 at 12:00-1:30 pm EST over Zoom. Jane Thomson of the University of New Brunswick Faculty of Law will speak on the invalidation of discriminatory wills and trusts as contrary to public policy. She will speak for […]
‘How to Recover Bitcoin for an Estate’
When someone passes away owning Bitcoin or another cryptocurrency, the recovery process can be difficult or impossible. As a personal representative or executor of an estate, the first job is to locate, custody and protect the assets of the deceased. Recovery of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is an essential part of being a personal representative. […]
‘Charities as Heirs’
Adam J Hirsch, ‘Beyond Privity of Blood: Intestacy and Charity’, 76 UC Law Journal (forthcoming, 2025), available at SSRN (March 16, 2024). Adam Hirsch’s new article, ‘Beyond Privity of Blood: Intestacy and Clarity’, argues that intestacy statutes should sometimes give a share of the decedent’s property to charity. To be honest, when I read his […]