Professor Langbein on Connecticut Probate
There's a probate-related controversy beginning to brew in Connecticut. Noted Yale Law School Professor John H. Langbein fired the first shot in this October 23 article from the Hartford Courant. (Actually, the shot was fired even earlier -- the article was based on Professor Langbein's October 7 testimony to the Connecticut Legislature Committee on Program
Review and Investigations.)
For those who believe law school professors are masters of obfuscation, consider this passage:
Try not to die in Connecticut. If you are a person of means, you should - late in life - establish your domicile in some place such as Florida or Maine or Arizona that has a responsible probate system. You can still own a Connecticut home and spend plenty of time here. Indeed, if you place title to your Connecticut home in a Florida trust, your trustee can even transfer the house after your death without going through Connecticut probate.
And then, later on:
Connecticut probate is a national scandal. Our bad reputation is longstanding. More than 50 years ago, Professor Thomas Atkinson of New York University, then the leading American authority on the field, wrote that "Connecticut is just about at the bottom of the list so far as its probate court system is concerned."
I move in national trust and estate circles, where Connecticut probate is routinely discussed as a disgrace. For estate planning professionals and law professors, Connecticut is the poster child for how not to organize probate courts.
Interestly enough, at least one Connecticut politician defended the organization of the probate courts before the exact same committee on the exact same day (see this article).
