Comments for Trusts & Estates

Comment on The Myth of American Testamentary Freedom by Lucas S.

Lucas S. — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 16:40:08 +0000

The proposed substitution of “intended” for “natural” seems especially useful because it separates two questions that the current vocabulary can blur: whether a disposition is unconventional, and whether it was actually produced by incapacity or undue influence. A follow-on empirical project could code will-contest opinions for the evidence courts rely on after excluding family-status language—such as procurement of the instrument, dependence, isolation, abrupt changes, and inconsistency with the testator’s documented relationships. That would show whether neutral terminology changes outcomes or merely shifts the same intuition into other parts of the analysis.

Comment on Trusts in Court: The Public’s Right to Know by ‘Trusts in Court: The Public’s Right to Know’ | Private Law Theory - Obligations, Property, Legal Theory

Fri, 24 Jul 2026 07:53:17 +0000

[…] Reid Kress Weisbord, David Horton and Naomi Cahn, ‘Secrecy in Trust Litigation’, Wake Forest Law Review (forthcoming, 2026-27), available at SSRN (12 February 2026). I last taught Wills, Estates, and Trusts in Spring 2025 to a large class with a fair number of students who were taking the course because the topic was likely to be tested on the bar exam. Consequently, I was concerned that students would not be as engaged when we covered trusts which, in my experience, students find more challenging to grasp than intestacy or wills. The media’s Herculean efforts to provide coverage of the Rupert Murdoch family trust litigation despite the parties’ attempts to seal the entire court proceeding, however, brought trusts to life. Many students – especially those who were fans of Succession, the HBO series inspired by the Murdoch family’s power struggles – were fascinated and simultaneously disturbed by the use of trusts to preserve wealth and power with minimal regulation … (more) […]

Comment on Empirical Insights into the Rural Estate Planning Crisis by Sergio Pareja

Sergio Pareja — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 18:15:46 +0000

The article just came out, and the name has changed slightly. Here is the correct title and cite:

Uneven Ground: A New Mexico Case Study of Rural Estate Planning and Probate Inequity, 51 ACTEC Law J. 2, 197 (Spring 2026).

The final version of the article can be found here:

https://contentsharing.net/actions/email_web_version.cfm?recipient_id=5028597281&message_id=24611060&user_id=ACTEC%5F&group_id=11142493&jobid=69041875

Comment on Cash For Compliance, Buying Obidience After Death by ‘Cash For Compliance, Buying Obedience After Death’ | Private Law Theory - Obligations, Property, Legal Theory

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 14:08:32 +0000

[…] William A Drennan, ‘RIP – A Financial Incentive to Protect Your Cadaver?’, 129 Penn State Law Review 667 (2025). Who wouldn’t want to control things, even after death? The chance that your surviving family will not obey your wishes after you die is exactly why you create a last will and testament. We all long to control where our money and property goes, but shouldn’t people also be concerned with what for some of us is most important of all – where our body goes? William A Drennan’s ‘RIP – A Financial Incentive to Protect Your Cadaver?’, suggests a clever way for individuals to control the disposition of their body through financial incentives … (more) […]

Comment on The New Uniform Parentage Act (2017) and Inheritance Law by Posthumous Reproduction: Legal Issues After a Spouse Dies – BatesonLaw

Posthumous Reproduction: Legal Issues After a Spouse Dies – BatesonLaw — Sun, 10 May 2026 10:39:28 +0000

[…] principle draws upon the presumption of parentage established by the UPA 2017, which now recognizes spouses in same‑sex relationships as parents […]

Comment on Less Freedom and More Equality by ‘Less Freedom and More Equality’ | Private Law Theory - Obligations, Property, Legal Theory

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 16:25:28 +0000

[…] Carla Spivack and Deborah Gordon, ‘Donative Freedom, Disrupted’, 91 Brooklyn Law Review (forthcoming, 2026), available at SSRN (5 February 2025). Donative freedom is the guiding principle of inheritance law. This is something that many of us who teach the subject tell students every semester, at the outset of a Wills and Trusts class. We keep repeating this truism because donative freedom turns out to be the answer to many of the questions we encounter, questions about why a certain rule exists or why a court case produces a certain result. What happens less frequently is sustained inquiry into the principle of donative freedom, its history, and the political economy supporting it … (more) […]

Comment on Leveraging Trust Law to Protect Child Influencers by February Wrap-Up: Taxes and Tech - Tucson Elder Law Attorney

February Wrap-Up: Taxes and Tech - Tucson Elder Law Attorney — Sun, 22 Feb 2026 14:32:54 +0000

[…] space is so new, there is a lack of regulation as to how their wealth is managed for them. Professor Naomi Cahn’s article explores how Trust law could be used to protect these children’s fortunes from their parents […]

Comment on A Life Insurance Tax Dodge Under Layers of Math by Andrew Granato Joins University of Texas Tax Faculty • TaxProf Blog

Andrew Granato Joins University of Texas Tax Faculty • TaxProf Blog — Sun, 15 Feb 2026 14:00:23 +0000

[…] A Matter of High Interest: How a Quiet Change to an Actuarial Assumption Turbocharges the Life Insurance Tax Shelter, 29 Conn. Ins. L. J. (2023) (reviewed by Kent Schenkel (New England) here) […]

Comment on Leveraging Trust Law to Protect Child Influencers by ‘Leveraging Trust Law to Protect Child Influencers’ | Private Law Theory - Obligations, Property, Legal Theory

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 18:13:52 +0000

[…] Naomi Cahn, ‘Trusting Remedies for the Child Influencer Space: Blocked Trust Accounts and Child Beneficiaries’, 17 Drexel Law Review 971 (2025). Professor Naomi Cahn’s recent article, ‘Trusting Remedies for the Child Influencer Space: Blocked Trust Accounts and Child Beneficiaries’, exists at the intersection of centuries-old legal doctrine and the technology-based influencer economy. The family influencer, parent-facilitated influencer, and kidfluencer spaces are thriving (from TikTok sponsorships to YouTube ads), and these are spaces in which federal protections for children are arguably inadequate. Instead, we must rely on limited oversight provided by a patchwork of state privacy and labor laws. A parental conflict of interest is inherent when a child is unable to give informed consent, and parents are overseeing a child who is also a profit center. As with child actors, the question becomes: who is overseeing or regulating the parents? … (more) […]

Comment on Small Gifts, Big Problems by ‘Small Gifts, Big Problems’ | Private Law Theory - Obligations, Property, Legal Theory

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 13:38:55 +0000

[…] Mark Glover, ‘Nominal Bequests’, 59 UC Davis Law Review 731 (2025). When I read the premise of Mark Glover’s terrific new article ‘Nominal Bequests’ – that some small-dollar gifts are problematic – I couldn’t help wonder whether it was a kind of stunt, like writing a novel without using the letter ‘e’. What could be wrong with testamentary gifts of trivial sums? Even if these bequests were somehow harmful, wouldn’t the payoff from regulating them pale in comparison to the costs? But Glover (who has been publishing up a storm) is waiting in the weeds with creative and thoughtful answers … (more) […]