February 24, 2009
February 19, 2009
E-Filing to Come to Cook County
I've previously spoken about ways in which computer filing could streamline the Cook County Probate Court, saving attorney time and client money (here and here). I thought this was just my crazy dream, but lo and behold, a friend of mine alerted me to the fact that Court Clerk Dorothy Brown will be introducing E-Filing starting in April 2009. Evidently this will include creating the court file and paying court fees electronically.
Thanks for the tip, Maureen!
One more thing: The fee for filing a petition to open a probate estate in Cook County for estates with values of $15,000 and above has increased, from $304 to $314.
February 18, 2009
Professor Layton and the Curious Village
I am what might be called an "old school" or "first generation" videogame player. I owned an Atari 2600 as a kid, and spent a lot of time at arcades and the like playing games like Pacman and Galaga. I still play a little, with my 7-year-old daughter. She owns a Nintendo DS (although she's only allowed to use it on long car trips), and I recently bought her a new game entitled Professor Layton and the Curious Village. I was surprised to learn that the game actually has an estate planning/probate connection. From the Wikipedia description:
The game opens with Professor Layton and [his assistant] Luke driving to the town of St. Mystere by request of Lady Dahlia, widow of the late Baron Reinhold. The Baron has left in his last will and testament that whoever solves the mystery of the Golden Apple would inherit the Baron's fortunes, and several people have attempted and failed. The two enter the town, and find that most of the population is fond of puzzles and brain teasers, both which Layton and Luke are adept at solving.
Players then have to solve over 120 brain teasers. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?
February 17, 2009
More on Attorney Fees and Billing Arrangements
I wanted to follow up on my recent post regarding alternative billing arrangements.
I think it really comes down to this: in the past 10+ years, when the economy has been good, attorney hourly rates have skyrocketed. Each year associates traditionally receive raises as they goes from being a 1st year to being a 2nd year, a 2nd year to a 3rd year, etc. In addition, in good times salaries also have increased significantly for 1st year (i.e. fresh out of law school) associates. Allow me to show my age: when I began practicing in 1996, starting salaries for 1st year associates at large law firms in Chicago were around $70,000. They are now more than double that amount (around $145,000), so 1st year salaries have gone up by more than 6% per year on average over the past 12 or so years.
Law firms can pay for rising associate salaries in one of two ways: by making their partners pay, or by making their clients pay. Can you guess which one of these ways is most often used by the people who run law firms? That's right -- good economic times means higher associate salaries means higher billing rates. What I'm curious to find out is whether bad economic times will mean lower billing rates. We can dance around alternative billing methods all we want, but isn't this really what clients are looking for? In good times, maybe you'll pay $500 per hour for legal expertise. But in bad times, maybe you'll only pay $400 per hour (or even less).
February 11, 2009
Tough Times and Probate
This is a Canadian article, but it applies the same here in the US -- "Tough times making even probate practice riskier."
The main thing I've seen is more financial stress on the heirs. Most of them didn't expect a huge windfall, but probate has been turned from a net gain to a net loss (at least in the short term). Often the heirs are the children, and the bad real estate market has forced them to assume all expenses related to their parent's home (real estate taxes, utilities, sometimes even a mortgage) while they wait for it to be sold.
February 10, 2009
Intestacy Reform
Evidently Massachusetts recently made some extensive changes to its Probate Code -- the story is here. I don't know much about the other provisions, but the provision that says "[i]n the case of no will, the spouse gets the entire estate if the children are all of the marriage" is a good one.
As I tell people when I give my Estate Planning 101 speech, if you die without a Will, the Illinois state legislature will gladly make one for you. And they'll probably mess it up. Currently, if you die intestate (without a Will) survived by a spouse and children in Illinois, your estate goes 1/2 to your spouse and 1/2 to your children. I have yet to meet a person who likes this arrangement, at least in the case where the children are the children of both parents. Mostly people state their wishes like this: "If I die, give everything to my spouse. If both of us die, give everything to our kids." Yet that's not what Illinois law says.
February 9, 2009
All of Me and Honestly Dearest, You're Dead
The Wall Street Journal has recently mentioned one movie and one book that relate to estate planning and probate.
1. All of Me. Mentioned by Joe Morgenstern in a sidebar in this column. Here's part of Mr. Morgenstern's summary:
[Lily Tomlin] plays Edwina, a dying millionaire spinster who arranges to have her soul transplanted into the body of a beautiful young woman. [Steve Martin] plays Roger, an attorney who's supposed to revise her will. When she dies prematurely, in the midst of great confusion, something goes wrong and she ends up sharing Roger's body in a crazed kind of joint tenancy. Though the film is imperfect, the physical comedy is often sublime.
2. Honestly Dearest, You're Dead. This is a novel by Jack Fredrickson, reviewed here by Tom Nolan. From the first paragraph of Mr. Nolan's review:
Vlodek "Dek" Elstrom is not a commanding figure. A divorced, disgraced private investigator who hit bottom after his reputation in Chicago was torpedoed by cunning crooks, Elstrom is living in an unheated stone turret in Rivertown, Ill. So why has he been named the executor for the modest estate of a dead stranger in a small town in Michigan?
February 6, 2009
Alternative Billing Arrangements
This article -- on the topic of the possible death of billable hours -- is pretty interesting.
I wrote about billing arrangements (and the problems with them) here. As I said there, I'm not sure that billable hours per se are the problem. Rather, the problem is attorneys who bill clients for .25 hours for a 3-minute phone call. (You can do the math -- if an attorney bills at $500 per hour and bills .25 hours for a 3-minute phone call, that's $112.50 for 3 minutes.) That type of behavior is unethical in any environment, and will cause clients to leave when the economy is bad. Ditto with ridiculously high billing rates. I'm at $225 per hour now, but I know attorneys with similar amounts of experience who charge $300 per hour more; I know more senior attorneys who are within shouting distance of $1,000 per hour. The fact is that, once you get to a certain level of experience, I'm not sure what you as a client are paying for. A fancy office? Artwork on the wall? Your attorney's second or third home? The ability to say "I'm represented by Fancy & Shmancy, Attorneys at Law"?
February 5, 2009
More domain names for sale
A while back, I sold a couple of domain names I wasn't using (www.probateblog.com and www.estateplanningblog.com). Now I have a couple more available, perfect for the Illinois estate planning or probate professional:
www.illinoisestateattorney.com
and
www.illinois-estate-attorney.com
I assume potential buyers would want both of these. If you are interested, you can bid at www.tdnam.com.
February 4, 2009
Same-Sex Marriage Probate Decision in New York
When I advise same-sex couples on their estate planning, one of the issues we have to discuss is how the couple is viewed by siblings and parents. This is important because, in the past, family members have sometimes been successful in overturning a gay or lesbian testator's Will in cases where the Will left everything to the testator's partner. That's why the New York case mentioned in this article is so interesting.
The Judge's opinion was that a same-sex couple that marries (in this case, the couple married in Canada) was a married couple for purposes of probate. Here, H. Kenneth Ranftle died with a spouse (J. Craig Leiby) and no children. As a result, Mr. Leiby is Mr. Ranftle's sole heir, and no notice must be given to Mr. Ranftle's three siblings. (I presume that heirship in New York works just as it does in Illinois -- if you are survived by a spouse or by children, then those individuals are your only heirs.)
If the Judge's opinion holds, then parents and/or siblings of a gay or lesbian who is married would have no standing to be involved in a probate, since they would be neither heirs nor legatees.
February 3, 2009
It's always good to run across people who write about estate planning/probate issues, and are good on the substantive side of things in addition to being good writers. Matt Wallace, an attorney in Port Huron, Michigan, is such a person. Here are a couple of recent articles from his column, Planning Matters:
How to avoid problems with probate, property
Children's accounts may need to be probated
February 2, 2009
Roland Burris: Estate Planner
These are trying times for Illinois residents. They should be the best of times (with our own former Senator in the White House), but Governor Blagojevich changed all that. Now I have to field calls from out-of-state relatives, asking me what's going on with our political system. And, to make matters worse, we get the Roland Burris tombstone issue.
What's that? Evidently the mausoleum for the new junior senator from Illinois has already been built, and it contains the words "Trail Blazer," as well as Senator Burris's resume. The Tribune has the story, here. The Senator's explanation?
"I'm an estate planner. I try to convince people to plan for your pre-needs," he explained. "It's best to have your crypts or your mausoleum already set aside. It takes a major burden off of your family."As for his résumé chiseled in granite, Burris said, "that wasn't me."
"The cemetery in Oak Woods insisted when I went out to plan my estate that my résumé be put on it. That wasn't me. That was the manager of the funeral home," he said. "They insisted that my résumé be put up and they came up with that design and did all that."
So not only is this guy another embarrassing Illinois politician, but he's also an estate planner? An estate planner who can get talked into things by a cemetery? Ugh.
February 2, 2009
Probate in DuPage County, Illinois
Most of my posts relate to Cook County probate, but today I'd like to spend some time talking about probate in DuPage County. Some notes:
Forms for DuPage County are available here. One important note: for testate estates, Cook County requires you to prepare a "Copy of Will" form, signed by the attorney and petitioner, to which you must attach... surprise surprise... a copy of the decedent's Will. DuPage County doesn't require this form.
DuPage is much more phone-friendly than Cook (mostly, I assume, because it's smaller). The main number for the court clerk's office is (630) 407-8700, and they can connect you to the probate department for specific questions.
DuPage is also very mail-friendly. You can mail in an original Will or probate petition to be filed. The main page of the clerk's website (here) shows a street address and a mailing address. I've always mailed to the street address.
The above combination makes things pretty easy, as do two additional facts:
1. Unlike Cook, there's not a backlog of probate estates in DuPage. I called on a Monday, and was told I could come in any day after Thursday of that week. (Yes, you can call to set up a court date -- yay!) The Cook County backup appears to be at least four weeks.
2. Probates are now handled informally in DuPage, at 8:15 a.m. (rise and shine!). You go to the Chancery Court Reception office on the 2nd floor, and are shown into a conference room. The clerk comes in, examines your documents, and gives you the OK to know that your estate will be opened. The last time I did it, the process took all of five minutes.
