We are kicking off the Fall with a two-month series focused on special needs planning, guardianships, and conservatorship issues. We will explore special needs trusts and then dive into guardianships and conservatorships, including filing requirements for guardianships and conservatorships, who …
During the past four months of living through COVID-19 and adjusting to social distancing changes in our lifestyle and litigation practices, we have been compelled to rethink how and where we practice law. Opportunities have emerged in our litigation practices …
To wrap up our series on the impact of divorce on estate planning and probate litigation and to dovetail on Tiffany Bentley’s post discussing a former spouse’s death after divorce, this blog changes the timeline: death during a divorce. Divorce …
We previously discussed how Massachusetts protects a surviving spouse from disinheritance through a statutory elective share of the Estate. But what if a surviving spouse’s statutory elective share is very small due to the family composition? There are a few …
As a follow-up to Tiffany’s blog on the basics of undue influence, this blog focuses on a subset of undue influence cases involving a fiduciary relationship. What is a fiduciary relationship and why is it important? The clear fiduciary …
This is a special post to address the impact of COVID-19 on our Courts, with a specific eye on probate litigation cases. The Supreme Judicial Court, the Probate and Family Courts, and the Superior Courts in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts …
Alternative dispute resolution (“ADR”) is a broad term to describe methods to resolve a case outside of the traditional courtroom, such as through mediation and arbitration. Before the pandemic, cases often resolved through ADR; however, since the pandemic, there has …