Article on the Property Restatement and the Uniform Probate Code

John H. Langbein(Sterling Professor of Law and Legal History, Yale University) recentlypublished an article entitled, Major Reforms of the Property Restatement andthe Uniform Probate Code: Reformation, Harmless Error, and Nonprobate Transfers, 38 ACTEC L.J. 1 (Spring2012).  This article is a part of the March 2012 Joseph Trachtman MemorialLecture presented at the annual meeting of The American College of Trust andEstate Council in Miami Beach and has been revised for publication.  Provided below is the introduction to hisarticle:

Professor Lawrence W.Waggoner and I have just concluded a twenty-year project for the American LawInstitute to restate the law of donative transfers.  We much appreciate the opportunity that the2012 Trachtman Lectures provides to reflect about some of the main themes ofour Restatement and related initiatives of the Uniform Probate Code.

Our Restatement bearsthe somewhat long-winded title, Restatement(Third) of Property: Wills and Other Donative Transfers.  In our lectures we will be referring to itsimply as the Property Restatement.  Thethird and final volume of the work was published in the last days of 2011.  The content of all three volumes is nowaccessible online.  The concluding volumecovers class gifts, powers of appointment, future interests, and the ruleagainst perpetuities.  In our division oflabor, for these lectures, Professor Waggoner will be discussing thatmaterial.  The two earlier volumes setforth the principles governing the law of wills, intestacy, the interpretationof instruments, and the nonprobate system. I will be focusing on certain of the initiatives developed in thatmaterial.