Article on Hubris

Julia Belian (Associate Professor of Law, University of Detroit Mercy School of Law) recently published her essay entitled Hubris, 3 Est. Plan. & Community Prop. L.J. 1 (2010). An excerpt from the beginning is below:

In 2005, John H. Langbein, renowned Yale scholar of estates and trusts, testified before the Connecticut Legislature Committee on The Scandal of Connecticut’s Probate Courts. Langbein cited five core failings: “wasteful multiplicity,” non-lawyers serving as judges, practicing lawyers serving as part-time judges, a “perverse” fee system, and territorialism among sitting probate judges. Langbein summed up his criticism in one scathing sentence: “Try not to die in Connecticut.”

Although the Texas probate system has earned no particular reputation for corruption and scandal, it is not without problems. In July 2007, the Houston Chronicle reported that courts supervising probates routinely ignored a 1994 order by the Texas Supreme Court requiring county clerks to report every judge-awarded fee in excess of $500. Between 2003 and 2005, an estimated $1.8 million of court-ordered payments went either entirely or inadequately reported, much of that money going to unidentified persons. Several large counties, including Travis, Hidalgo, and El Paso, made no reports at all. Such problems have plagued probate systems for decades, even centuries. Financial journalist Jane Bryant Quinn warned Newsweek readers in 1992 to consider revocable trusts as an estate planning strategy if they live “in a Dickensian probate jurisdiction, where courts are still staffed by political hacks, and lawyers are running riot with fees.”