Wills, Trusts, and Estates

Loose-leaf resource created and updated by the Dallas Bar Association. Designed for local attorneys practicing in probate.

Covers intestate succession, wills, trusts, estate administration, nonprobate assets, wealth transfer taxation, disability and death planning (including elder law concerns), and malpractice and professional responsibility to augment Wills, Trusts, and Estates and related courses that expose students to estate planning, decedents' estates, and trusts. This book also provides essential background and review material for students taking advanced courses in estate planning, elder law, and wealth transfer taxation. Both the theoretical and practical applications of the legal concepts are covered. The Examples & Explanations pedagogy combines student-friendly exposition with well-crafted exercises and clear, complete answers—with these, students can test their knowledge and practice applying the law.

Key Features of the New Edition:

• The American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 and its impact on Federal gift, estate, and generation-skipping transfer taxes
• Same-sex marriage and the rights of same-sex partners
• Medicaid planning
• Physician-assisted suicide
• Physician orders for life-sustaining treatment
• Updated casebook correlation tables reflect new editions of the major casebooks
• Includes sample will and trust provisions and a model will which is extensively annotated

Restatement of the Law of Trusts aims to organize and explain the principles in the field of trusts. The work offers guidance to trustees, lawyers, and judges by explaining and illustrating the governing rules and discussing relevant cases, statutes, and secondary sources.

Often cited by the courts, Restatement of the Law of Trusts:

• Identifies particular social goals, such as implementing a settlor's purposes
• Bounds those purposes with society's appropriate limitations
• Applies rules efficiently and fairly

Commentary provides a scholarly and analytical discussion of particular rules, and general rules are clearly and concisely stated for easy reference. Other editorial features include an appendix containing citations and summaries of cases that have been decided with the help of the Restatements.

Restatement of the Law of Property covers donative transfers, the core of family estate planning, which require application of many fields of law including federal and state tax law, and corporate, partnership, contract, agency, and domestic relations law. This treatment of the law proceeds with these and other relevant fields in the background. Coverage includes:

• Will substitutes
• Intestacy
• Gifts
• Present and future interests
• Construction of donative documents

With Texas Estate Planning at your side, preparing wills, trusts and durable powers of attorney has never been easier. This must-have guide explains current federal and state statutory and case law. Hundreds of forms, together with explanations of how best to apply them, will assist you in preparing client wills, trusts, durable powers of attorney and more. From writing a simple will to preparing a complicated trust document, Texas Estate Planning clarifies statutes and outlines court opinions in an easy-to-understand, quick-to-reference manner.

Texas Estate Planning includes comprehensive coverage of wills, trusts and durable powers of attorney. It guides you through the basics of selecting the appropriate estate planning device and tax considerations, and provides detailed information such as requirements for a valid will and organization of the document. Trust planning, terms, types, funding and implementation are thoroughly explained.

This all-encompassing guide is ideal for Texas general practice, estate planning and probate attorneys, as it contains the most current federal and state statutory and case law. Attorneys with little or no estate planning experience will manage client needs with ease and even the most experienced estate planning expert will save countless hours by using Texas Estate Planning for clarification and reference.

Texas Estate Planning Statutes with Commentary: 2017-2019 Edition is a compilation of Texas statutes that are significant to law school and paralegal courses related to estate planning, such as wills and estates, trusts, estate administration, probate, elder law, and guardianship. Changes made by the 2017 Texas Legislature are printed in red-lined format to make the revisions easy for the reader to locate. Many sections include carefully written commentary entitled Statutes in Context. These annotations provide background information, explanations, examples, and citations to key cases, which will assist the reader in identifying the significance of the statutes and how they operate. Amazon Description

Law of Wills provides detailed coverage of intestate succession, wills and their construction, and probate avoidance techniques, along with authoritative guidance on planning for incompetence and “persona rights” after death. It includes an analytical discussion of both relevant legislation and applicable case law.

This comprehensive set examines:

• Spousal and non-spousal rights in intestate property
• Potential disqualification of heirs
• Simultaneous death
• Nature and extent of testamentary power
• Tax apportionment
• Will revocation
• The rule against perpetuities
• Will contests and preventing will contests
• Guardians for minor children
• Planning for incompetence and death
• Anatomical Gift Act and related statutes

Organized to parallel the Texas Probate Code, Probate and Decedents' Estates furnishes the information needed to make your probate practice more efficient and profitable. The authors' valuable commentaries on both the Probate Code and significant decisions interpreting it direct you to controlling authority. Coverage includes:

• Jurisdiction of probate court and district court
• Pleadings and procedure
• Probate records
• Review of probate decrees
• Suits by and against estates
• Determination of heirship
• Proceedings to set aside probate of will
• Administration of community property
• Homestead and other exempt property
• Creditors' claims
• Partition and distribution
• Final settlement

From guardianships to probate proceedings to taxation, Texas Probate, Estate & Trust Administration provides in-depth coverage of every aspect of probate law and estate and trust administration in Texas. Four comprehensive volumes offer the straightforward guidance, expert analysis and practice tools you need to successfully meet your client's needs and avoid liability to beneficiaries or other third parties.

Rely on Detailed Legal Analysis and Information Vital to Your Practice, Including:

• The independent administration system
• Attorney's role in probate practice
• Guardianship issues
• Will contents
• Administration and management of estates and trusts
• Fiduciary duties of personal representatives
• Health care powers of attorney and directives to physicians
• Effect of community property laws on the distribution of an estate
• Information and tips regarding deadlines, required documents and mandatory procedural requirements under the Probate Code

A cornerstone of probate law practice. From the initial contact with a client to the closing of the estate, this System will be in constant use, providing a step-by-step guide to the efficient handling of a decedent’s estate.

The Texas Probate System includes:

• Letters of a standard, routine, and repetitive nature
• Forms to be prepared for court proceedings
• Worksheets designed to guide you through proper decisions, to make calculations, or to maintain a single summary record of multiple related transactions
• Significant Date List to assist you in calculating and recording important dates for all proceedings
• Checkplan containing a checklist of all activities to be considered and performed in handling a decedent’s estate.

This book is designed for law school courses covering intestate succession and wills. The cases, problems, and questions are drawn extensively from Texas materials and attempt to provide the student with a comprehensive understanding of how property transmission at death is handled in Texas.

Wills Road Map: Practical Considerations in Will Drafting began life as the well-known seminar paper “Anatomy of a Will” from the TexasBarCLE seminar “Building Blocks of Wills, Estates and Probate.” Intended for both general practitioners who occasionally prepare wills for their existing clients as well as for experienced estate planning attorneys, Wills Road Map brings together legal concepts from wills, probate, and trust law to provide expert guidance in properly assembling a will.

Featuring a basic discussion of estate tax planning, with a focus on various state law issues, Wills Road Map also addresses principles that can affect the will beyond the language of the will itself. Other subjects include doctrines affecting the validity of the will and a review of the legal significance and effect of the many specific wills provisions. Helpful appendixes include a checklist and sample wills forms.

This volume updates earlier editions to continue offering efficient, yet comprehensive, coverage of the issues in a standard Trusts and Estates course. Although the book is designed primarily as a student supplement, some teachers have used it successfully as the primary text, supplemented by statutory materials, for both the basic course and for more specialized courses.

The organization tracks the basic approach of most casebooks, and where it differs from an individual book, the comprehensive table of contents makes it easy to find what students need. By discussing many of the cases found in popular casebooks, the text helps students understand how specific issues fit in a bigger picture.

The footnotes carry the student-centered approach a step further by briefly discussing tangential issues, offering additional examples, and again citing cases often found in casebooks. Even if the text does not discuss "their" case, often it will cite the case and place it in context. Each case citation includes a brief fact description to provide more examples of the way general principles can apply in specific situations. Further, the footnotes include numerous cross-references to other sections of the book, to help students identify the interconnections holding the subject together.

COURSE BOOK: Wills, Trusts, and Estates retains the late Jesse Dukeminier’s unique blend of wit, erudition, insight, and playfulness while covering all the key topics in a logical, clear organization. Interesting cases―not only fun to read, but fun to teach as well―are enhanced and connected to broader legal principles by well-written notes, questions, and problems. Cartoons, illustrations, case documents, and photographs provide often humorous visual commentary and teaching aids at appropriate places within the text. A comprehensive Teacher’s Manual summarizes all the readings, answers every question and problem in the casebook, provides comments about material cited in the text, and offers deeper analysis and observations to foster lively classroom discussion.