Crushing a Surviving Spouse Under Illinois Law

A recent article by Prof. Ronald Z. Domsky of the John Marshall Law School provides modern advice to attorneys who are assisting a client who has good reasons to disinherit a surviving spouse.

Here is a summary of the article, ‘Til Death Do Us Part … After That, My Dear, You’re on Your Own: A Practitioner’s Guide to Disinheriting a Spouse in Illinois. 29 S. Ill. U. L.J. 207 (2005), as provided on Lexis/Nexis:

Disinheriting a spouse has become an increasingly frequent request for estate planning lawyers as the so called “traditional family” has faded into the past. This practitioner oriented article informs lawyers about the different techniques and devices that can accomplish a client’s desire to disinherit a spouse. The article specifically analyzes the premarital agreement as the most effective tool for disinheriting a spouse, including many practitioner hints to assure the premarital agreement is valid and effective when it is triggered. Also, this article examines how lawyers can still accomplish their client’s goals when a premarital agreement was not executed. Secondly, this article throughly examines the surviving spouses rights under inheritance laws specifically surrounding the inter vivos trust whereby, if executed correctly, a client can effectively disinherit a spouse by removing assets from the client’s probate estate, from which the surviving spouses share is determined. Further, the courts consider a variety of factors when considering a surviving spouses claim of fraud in the disinheritance and the article examines each.