On a report by the Commissioner of Accounts and review of these seven cases in which a law firm has served in multiple roles, including guardian, conservator and trustee, for incapacitated persons, the Fairfax Circuit Court orders the law firm ...

Tagged with: Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge Leslie M. Alden Virginia Circuit Courts Wills & Trusts

Virginia does not recognize same-sex marriages or domestic partnerships, and also does not recognize the validity of same-sex marriages or domestic partnerships entered into in other states. As a result, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) population of Virginia ...

Tagged with: Elder Law Wills & Trusts

You have reviewed your new client’s intake questionnaire. She is an 80-year-old widow with three children, two grandchildren and two great grandchildren. Her net worth, including her mortgage-free home, is about $3.5 million. She has a good government pension as ...

Tagged with: Elder Law Wills & Trusts

A couple’s reciprocal wills providing each testator left the entire estate to the surviving spouse and each testator’s child from a previous marriage would get one-half the estate at the death of the surviving spouse, was not a binding contract ...

Tagged with: Justice Cleo E. Powell Supreme Court of Virginia Wills & Trusts

An investment manager who sued to get his fees from two trusts not only lost his case, he was hit for more than $13 million on a counterclaim. After a six-day trial, an Alexandria jury found plaintiff John R. Erb ...

Tagged with: Alexandria Circuit Court Fraud Million-Dollar Verdicts Wills & Trusts

John R. Erb, the sole shareholder, officer and employee of the Alexandria investment management firm of de Teffé Capital Management, Inc., initiated the action by filing suit for trustee’s and investment management fees totaling approximately $1.5 million allegedly earned and ...

Tagged with: Alexandria Circuit Court Judge Lisa B. Kemler Million-Dollar Verdicts Wills & Trusts

Intestate heirs filed a declaratory judgment action seeking judgment against an individual named in a 1995 holographic will and three volunteer rescue squads also named in the will. Prior to her death in 2010, the testatrix sold for $2,000,000 certain ...

Tagged with: Million-Dollar Settlements Wills & Trusts

A lawyer’s legal assistant could determine that a hospitalized client had testamentary capacity to change her will to leave her estate to her daughter Mary Ann who cared for her, in contrast to an earlier will that divided the estate ...

Tagged with: Justice Cleo E. Powell Supreme Court of Virginia Wills & Trusts

Membership in a Virginia limited liability corporation may not be transferred by will, the Supreme Court of Virginia holds, and the daughter of a two-member LLC inherited only her father’s financial interest in the company to share in profits and ...

Tagged with: Justice William C. Mims Supreme Court of Virginia Wills & Trusts

Although the Norfolk Circuit Court earlier dismissed plaintiff’s claim against her brother-in-law for performance of her deceased sister’s promise that plaintiff would receive $60,000 from her sister’s pension proceeds, plaintiff is not barred from pursuing a claim against her brother-in-law ...

Tagged with: Judge Charles E. Poston Norfolk Circuit Court Virginia Circuit Courts Wills & Trusts