Wills, Trusts, and Estates in Focus, Second Edition — Just Released!

Here is the publisher’s description of the book:

In a Wills, Trusts, and Estates (WTE) class, there are students who plan to practice WTE (exclusively, or as part of a general practice), and those who need only master the general concepts to pass the bar exam. Wills, Trusts, and Estates in Focus, Second Edition, attends to the needs of both sets of students. For those who will practice in WTE, concepts are exemplified by realistic hypothetical scenarios that mirror practice and support the development of lawyering skills. For those who take WTE as a requisite course for the bar, the organization of text is keyed to the topics on the essay portion of the multi-state bar examination. Moreover, in the Second Edition, most problem sets now reflect the structure of the NextGen Bar’s foundational skills requirements. (For example, one foundational skill is to “Identify which facts are likely to be relevant to or dispositive of a legal issue in a matter,” so some problems now prompt the student to similarly note the dispositive facts.)

New to the Second Edition:

• Expanded discussion of survival, with references to attempted updates to the Uniform Determination of Death Act
• Enhanced coverage of tax values, including the future of estate tax in light of a 2025 end date for current estate tax provisions
• Important updates to electronic wills, estate planning documents, and the current rules on remote witnessing and notarization
• Major new cases, including:
    • Reynolds v. Van Den Steene, addressing the requirement of capacity in will contests
    • Herbst v. Board of Regents of the University of Colorado, involving the issue of standing in the management of a charitable trust
    • Reece Trust v. Reece, concerning the interpretation of a standard to distribute property for a wife’s support
    • In re Trust Under Deed of Garrison, demonstrating how trusts can be reformed by unanimous consent