Trusts and Estates law was for centuries a fairly stable, if dusty, body of doctrine. Over the past few decades, however, striking changes in the economic, legal and social landscape have prompted an explosion of new doctrinal developments. Major trends in banking and tax law – including the gradual elimination of Glass-Steagall, which resulted in mergers of investment and commercial banking institutions and increased competition for trust business, and the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, which is set to expire next year — spurred the development of dynasty and domestic asset protection trusts and significant changes in fiduciary duty law governing trustees’ management and investment duties. Banks’ demand for more predictability in law helped jump start a trend away from common law and toward codification, which produced the Uniform Trust Code and increasingly detailed revisions to the Uniform Probate Code. Cultural changes and scientific and medical advances caused states to grapple with their conception of family relationships, and with treatment of end-of-life issues.
The AALS section on Trusts and Estates issues a call for papers that evaluate and critique these and other trends and developments in Trusts and Estates Law. Those chosen will present papers at the 2010 AALS Annual Meeting in New Orleans during a program entitled Changing Times, Changing Law: Evaluating Legal Trends in Trusts and Estates Law. To encourage greater participation and attendance, some preference will be given to academics who have not previously presented at the AALS Annual Meeting. Please submit papers by August 24, 2009 to Melanie Leslie at Leslie@yu.edu.
