A three-judge circuit court panel this month found in favor of a lawyer accused by the Virginia State Bar of “dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation” and other offenses in connection with trusts established for elderly clients. The Alexandria Circuit Court ...

Tagged with: Alexandria Circuit Court Lawyer Discipline Virginia State Bar Wills & Trusts

Testimony from decedent’s friends, business associates and the lawyer who prepared his 2002 will supported by clear and convincing evidence the claim that a fully executed photocopy of the will kept with decedent’s important papers could be probated, and the ...

Tagged with: Justice Donald W. Lemons Supreme Court of Virginia Wills & Trusts

Virginia law has changed on who can access someone’s digital assets after they die, and lawyers who do estates work may need to advise clients about their electronic privacy rights. Cyber businesses, legislatures and lawyers across the country have been ...

Tagged with: General Assembly Technology Wills & Trusts

The Supreme Court of Virginia has agreed to take a look at how trial judges can best protect money being awarded to children under a wrongful death verdict. Virginia law allows a jury in a civil death case to decide ...

Tagged with: Million-Dollar Verdicts Supreme Court of Virginia News Wills & Trusts

A testator’s first handwritten note stating her wish that her grandson receive $50,000 expressed no testamentary intent, but her second handwritten note saying “if my assets are over $750,000 at the time of my demise, I would like Ian to ...

Tagged with: Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge Robert J. Smith Virginia Circuit Courts Wills & Trusts

A widow who is seeking to rescind a Disclaimer of Interest as primary beneficiary of an IRA that belonged to her deceased husband must pursue her action in state court, as the U.S. has not waived sovereign immunity and is ...

Tagged with: Judge Henry Coke Morgan Jr. U.S. District Court - Eastern District Wills & Trusts

A trust beneficiary can maintain a derivative suit on behalf of a trustee against a third party de facto trustee, and the Norfolk Circuit Court overrules an estate’s demurrers to plaintiff’s suit alleging mismanagement of two irrevocable trusts of which ...

Tagged with: Judge David W. Lannetti Norfolk Circuit Court Virginia Circuit Courts Wills & Trusts

The Supreme Court of Virginia will decide whether a missing will means an estranged son can collect a portion of his father’s $9 million estate. The court will weigh arguments in a case that pits a widow and daughter against ...

Tagged with: Arlington County Circuit Court Judge William T. Newman Jr. Wills & Trusts

A Richmond lawyer and his firm are on the hook for a $603,409.90 bequest that should have gone to the Richmond Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, under a judge’s ruling last month in a legal malpractice case. ...

Tagged with: Chesterfield County Circuit Court Judge Herbert C. Gill Legal Malpractice Wills & Trusts

Surviving family members of a longtime Liberty University benefactor claim that school representatives hounded the elderly donor with aggressive solicitation in his final days, even telling him he would not go to heaven unless he left his assets to the ...

Tagged with: Wills & Trusts