Dispute Prevention in Will Probate

choi

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Anne Tergesen, A Will and a Way; New laws can help limit court fights over your estate--before you die. Wall Street Journal, Mar 21, 2011.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703628204575619041062257282.html

My comment:
(a) Two decades ago, I chanced upon a trial in a small court room of out-of-the-way Somerville District Court. I was the sole spector. It was about a dispute of a caregiver who claimed that the deceased (an old man) promised to pay her for the care, got nothing from the estate and sued the estate. Plaintiff subpoenaed the attorney for the estate to testify at the trial, who duly appeared and asserted attorney-client privilege, as requested by the executrix. Judge allowed it. and plaintiff's attorney sat there and said nothing, as if he had anticipated it. I was anxious and reached the plaintiff and her attorney and told them that the ruling over the attorney-client privilege must be wrong, for the television miniseries Dallas showed grown-up childrens contested the will by challenging mental competence of their deceased father. Off hand I could not find a Massachusetts authority to support my argument, but stated that the legal issue should have been settled before the trial. I do not know the outcome of the trial, or whether the judge overruled himself. Just now, I searched the web and found the authorative directive from Board of Bar Overseers (BBO), the administrative arm of the state supreme court that deals with all matters over attorneys, from admission to disbar.

Roger Geller and Susan Strauss Weisberg, Death and Confidentiality. BBO, February 2004.
http://www.mass.gov/obcbbo/death.htm
("If the caller [to the BBO, who was an estate attorney] were served with a trial or deposition subpoena in a probate proceeding, in the absence of a waiver by the appointed estate representative, he would have to assert the privilege and his obligations * * * The caller would then be required to comply with any ensuing court order for his testimony or production of records from the client’s file")

Please note that the exception to the iron-clad attornney-client privilege appliyes to contest of will. In other situations, the secrets of a client foes with him to the grave--with the exception that only  the executor of his estate may waive it.

(b) executrix (n): "a woman who is an executor"
www.m-w.com

* The plural form of executrix may be executrices (Latin plural) or executrixes (English plural).
* Please take note an executor (of an estate) is different from an executioner, whose definitions is "one who executes; especially : one who puts to death."

All definitions are from www.m-w.com.
(c) probate (n, vt): "the action or process of proving before a competent judicial authority that a document offered for official recognition and registration as the last will and testament of a deceased person is genuine"
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