Law Commons^™

Intestacy Concerns For Same-Sex Couples: How Variations In State Law And Policy Affect Testamentary Wishes, Megan Moser

Seattle University Law Review

As the number of same-sex couples increases in the United States, concerns regarding the evolution of federal and state law, with respect to rights for same-sex couples, also continue to rise. As marriage is not always available to same-sex couples, they often face very different legal issues than couples in a traditional marriage. Because marriage is typically not a legal cause of action, the question of a marriage’s validity often arises incidentally to another legal question, such as the disposition of a decedent’s estate.

The Testamentary Foundations Of Commercial Arbitration, Peter B. Rutledge

Scholarly Works

This Article offers the first systematic treatment of the relationship between commercial arbitration and testamentary arbitration. (By testamentary arbitration, I mean an arbitration clause contained in a will requiring beneficiaries to resolve differences over the estate by means of an enforceable decision by a private party rather than judicial resolution in a probate court.) Recent scholarship and jurisprudence have questioned the enforceability of these arrangements as incompatible with the requirement of a written "agreement" between parties to the arbitration. Contrary to these views, close examination of the historical record of testamentary arbitration leading to the Federal Arbitration Act's enactment reveals …

Trusting Trust, Deborah Gordon

Deborah S Gordon

What is a trustee and how should we understand her duties? The existing literature typically identifies the trustee in the role of agent, partner or contracting party. This Article re-envisions the trustee in the role of the legal system’s most trusted type of decision-maker: the common law judge. Rather than argue for a top-down recreation of the trustee’s role, this Article contends that valuable lessons can be learned by reconceptualizing how trustees, settlors, and beneficiaries view themselves and each other. Using traditional literature about great judging as a touchstone, the Article argues that those qualities essential to principled adjudication — …

Balancing Testamentary Incapacity And Undue Influence: How To Handle Will Contests Of Testators With Diminishing Capacity, Richard B. Keeton

Richard B. Keeton, Esq.