Probate Litigation

The firm has one of the largest, most well-respected Trust & Estates practices in the region. Consequently, the firm’s litigators regularly must deal with disputes that arise from the probate of Wills, the administration of Estates, the creation and interpretation of Trusts, the administration of Trusts and the integrity of the fiduciaries charged with the responsibility of managing Trusts and Estates.  Similarly, disputes often arise from Guardianships and Conservatorships.

Probate disputes quite often strike right at the heart of a family dynamic.  Common disputes include questions concerning:

• Is the Will valid?
• Is the Trust and/or Estate being managed effectively, fairly and with integrity?
• Is a relative competent to handle his or her own affairs and competent to manage his or her own safety?

These disputes often pit spouse against spouse, parent against child, and sibling against sibling.  The stress that attaches to these disputes cannot be overstated.

Clients who find themselves in one of these situations need objective assistance from litigators who are familiar with the Probate Court, the law, and the available remedies.  The experience of the firm’s litigators and Trust & Estates practitioners makes for a potent combination.

Representative Matters:

• The adult children from a first marriage often times are at odds with the Will and/or Trust left by a parent who has had a second marriage.  The firm confronts this circumstance often and has represented both the disappointed adult children and the spouse from the second marriage.  The firm’s litigators have had multiple trials with this dynamic in play.
• Clients often have life insurance policies that designate a spouse, children or a child as the death beneficiary.  On occasion, the beneficiary designation is changed very late in life under mysterious circumstances to the detriment of a spouse or one or more of the children.  The firm’s litigators have brought lawsuits to challenge such beneficiary changes and have defended such lawsuits.
• Trustees of Trusts, Personal Representatives of Estates and Conservators have been known to ignore their duties, to benefit themselves financially and inappropriately and to treat beneficiaries and wards disparately. The firm’s litigators many times have brought actions to remove a Trustee, Personal Representative and/or Conservator and to hold such individuals accountable for wrongful conduct. The litigators also have defended those wrongfully accused of such misconduct.  At a recent trial in Middlesex County in which the firm represented a Trustee against a complaining beneficiary, the court credited the firm’s defense and rejected all claims by the beneficiary.
• The firm recently and successfully defended a state-wide charity in litigation in Barnstable County. A petition had been filed to reduce the potential distribution to the beneficiary/charity under a Trust. The firm’s litigators defeated that effort and actually obtained a more favorable present and future distribution for the charity.