Law Commons^™

Incorporating Social Justice And Environmental Sustainability Into Estate Planning Through Conservation Easements, Trace Brooks

ACTEC Law Journal

As climate change and social inequalities become increasingly pressing issues, estate planning has emerged as a powerful tool for promoting both social justice and environmental sustainability. This article explores the intersection of estate planning, private land conservation, social justice, and environmental sustainability.

Proposing A Model Antilapse Clause, Raymond C. O'Brien

ACTEC Law Journal

The complexity of state antilapse statutes exacerbates the task of many estate planners seeking to give prudent expression to the postmortem wishes of a client. These statutes vary as to which predeceasing beneficiaries they should apply, who should be the substitute takers to benefit instead of these lapsed beneficiaries, and how to treat beneficiaries who are treated as predeceasing because of renunciation agreements, final decrees of divorce, or, when the beneficiary kills, exploits, or abuses the one from whom the beneficiary would take. Within the modern statutory framework, there exists an abundant array of testamentary devices by which a transferor …

Married, With Children At Death, Emily S. Taylor Poppe

ACTEC Law Journal

Despite modern trends in family formation, married individuals with children remain prevalent in the adult population in the United States. To the extent that these individuals forego estate planning, their probate property is distributed at death according to the laws of intestacy of their state of domicile. These laws are motivated by assumptions about probable intent, and on that basis typically prioritize the surviving spouse and children over other potential heirs. However, there is wild jurisdictional variation in the relative interests of the spouse and descendants of married parent decedents under these laws. Historical evidence suggested that most decedents who …

A Defense Of Perpetual Trusts, Danny Fein

ACTEC Law Journal

This essay emphatically defends perpetual trusts and recent state-level repeals of the Rule Against Perpetuities. The scholarly debate over the category of perpetual trusts has focused exclusively on one type—the Dynasty Trust—which is designed to perpetuate wealth within families by exploiting a tax loophole. The unsavory nature of both Dynasty Trusts and the legal reform movement that spawned them has blinded critics to a universe of perpetual trusts that are socially beneficial. Previously, new types of trusts that required perpetuity could only achieve it through statutory exemption. Private Foundations and Stewardship Trusts were each granted perpetuity by legislatures. Now that …

Alkaline Hydrolysis, Victoria J. Haneman

ACTEC Law Journal

Hollywood has developed its own villainous death disposition trope that is often a link in a nefarious narrative chain—disposition of human remains through some form of chemical dissolution. Spanning decades and genre, popular cinema and television have warmly embraced liquification of the dead, including but not limited to The Wizard of Oz, House on Haunted Hill, Thief, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Point of No Return, Palmetto, Walker, Texas Ranger, NCIS, Bones, The Wire, Breaking Bad, Dexter, Blacklist, Homeland, Elementary, 10 Cloverfield Lane, Ozark, Rick and Morty. The specifics vary dramatically from one work of fiction to the next but the …

Incentivizing Wills Through Tax, Margaret Ryznar

ACTEC Law Journal

There have been recent calls to loosen will formalities in order to allow more people to execute wills, the importance of which has been highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The reduction of necessary will formalities can be successful in expanding the use of wills, as can potential tax incentives for creation of wills, such as a tax credit. However, there are numerous advantages to using tax to initiate change, as considered in this Article.

Rethinking The Estate Planning Curriculum, Jeffrey A. Cooper

ACTEC Law Journal

As a result of recent changes in Federal estate tax law, fewer and fewer clients need sophisticated estate tax planning. Many lawyers are thus spending less time acting as estate tax planners and instead deploying different skills and expertise.

In this brief article, I explore the extent to which law schools are rethinking their curricula as a result. The discussion proceeds in two parts. First, I discuss the curricular changes I have overseen at the law school at which I teach, setting out both the changes made and the assumptions underlying them. Second, relying on a brief survey of other …

Janus As A Client: Ethical Obligations When Your Client Plays Two Roles In One Fiduciary Estate, Karen E. Boxx, Philip N. Jones

ACTEC Law Journal

Is it possible for an attorney to have a conflict of interest when the attorney represents a trustee who is also a beneficiary of the trust? Is that situation similar to having two clients? What if the trustee is not only a beneficiary, but also a claimant against the trust? Since the trustee has three roles to play, is that situation similar to an attorney having three clients? The issue presented by these potential conflicts was one of the most vexing for the drafters of the Fifth Edition of the ACTEC Commentaries. The range of possible approaches goes from a …

Foreword -- The Supreme Court's Estate Planning Jurisprudence, Bridget J. Crawford

ACTEC Law Journal

This short essay introduces a special issue of the ACTEC Law Journal devoted to the estate planning jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of the United States. The issue includes two invited essays on the role of the court in developing the law in this area, as well as commentaries on seventeen of the most important estate planning-related cases decided by the Supreme Court between 1925 and 2013.

I Dig It, But Congress Shouldn't Let Me: Closing The Idgt Loophole, Daniel L. Ricks

ACTEC Law Journal

By combining three tools that independently are beneficial to taxpayers, clever estate planners have devised a transaction - the installment sale of discounted assets to an intentionally defective grantor trust - that saves their ultra-wealthy clients millions of dollars in estate and gift taxes. This transaction, which is a foundational part of many estate plans, takes advantage of rules that Congress never intended to be used in this way. Becasue the Internal Revenue Service has conceded its inability to challenge the transaction based on current law, any solution lies with Congress. This Article proposes an amendment to § 2036 that …