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Is an oral promise to make a will or trust enforceable under California law? Contrary to what many believe, California law provides for the enforcement of oral promises to make a will or trust.

How does the promise to make a will or trust arise? Generally, a parent orally promises a child, a friend, or

I get calls every week from California Trust, Last Will, and Estate beneficiaries complaining that they can’t get their brother or sister, who is the Trustee and Executor of their parents’ estate plan, to provide copies of the parents’ estate plan after the parents have died.

I usually suggest the following. First, send a letter

After years of fighting the urge I purchased a BMW R1200GS. Since my purchase, I can’t stop riding my GS. I look for any excuse to go for a ride. Deposition in Los Angeles? No problem—I get to and from LA in just over an hour each way. Need Dog Food? No problem—I just strap

There are times when people try to implement an estate plan, but things go awry.  And that can happen when an attorney makes a mistake in drafting a California Trust or Will resulting in legal malpractice.

Bringing and prosecuting a legal malpractice case against an attorney who improperly drafted a California Living Trust or Will

From time to time we have clients come to our office upset that the attorney who drafted their parents’ California estate plan (i.e., living trust, will, and durable powers of attorney) got it wrong or perhaps failed to properly implement the parents’ estate plan.

In a recent case we handled an attorney drafted an amendment

After making the decision to take all of my cases to trial in 2011, here are the important lessons I learned as a plaintiff’s and estate trial attorney:

1.  Taking each of your cases to trial generally works in your client’s favor.

Defense attorneys (and their clients) will offer your clients pennies on the dollar

The most important interrogatory in California is Form Interrogatory 15.1. Propound it; meet and confer on it; file motions to compel on it. Make them give you their facts, witnesses, and documents supporting their denials and affirmative defenses. Form Interrogatory 15.1 is the great equalizer in California trust and probate litigation.

Nobody Likes Motions to Compel:

 Plaintiff attorneys don’t like them because they aren’t paid an hourly fee to draft them; Defense attorneys don’t like them because they know how effective these motions are at slicing through their procedural gamesmanship; and Judges don’t like them because these motions take up valuable court time with juvenile spats