Avoiding Estate Planning Errors

Gerry W. Beyer (Governor Preston E. Smith Regents Professor of Law, Texas Tech University School of Law) has recently published his article entitled Avoiding the Estate Planning “Blue Screen of Death” — Common Non-Tax Errors and How to Prevent Them, 1 Est. Plan. & Comm. Prop. L.J. 61 (2008).

Here is an excerpt from the article’s introduction:

Have you ever been using your computer and unexplainably encountered the dreaded “blue screen of death” where work completely disappears and is replaced by a blue screen with white text indicating that an unrecoverable system error has occurred and that you must restart your computer and lose all unsaved data?  If you have, you know the frustration and anger that follows especially because there was nothing you could do to prevent it.  In the estate planning context, a malpractice action can be considered a blue screen equivalent.  Fortunately, unlike the virtually unpreventable computer error, you have the ability to reduce tremendously the likelihood of estate planning “crashes.”

This article discusses the potential liability of estate planners for malpractice, the common non-tax related mistakes attorneys may make while preparing estate plans, and the risky but commonly seen practice of preparing estate plans for both spouses.

A limited number of reprints of this article are available at no charge.  If you are interested in a copy, please let me know.