Honors Trusts & Estates W/Module

Catalog description

Honors Trusts and Estates with Practice Module will teach students the doctrinal law and introduce the skills necessary to practice in the estates and trusts area. Students will learn and then apply the law governing gratuitous transfers, focusing primarily on wills, trusts, other will substitutes, and powers of appointment. The course will explore the policies and theories behind donative transfers during life and at death and examine the applicable doctrinal law based on the Uniform laws, the Restatement, New York law and other relevant statutory and case law. The course will focus on the practical application of these doctrinal materials and the attorney’s role in planning and administering an estate through the use of simulation exercises and drafting projects culminating in a comprehensive estate plan. Through the use of simulations and collaborative exercises, particular attention will be devoted to interviewing and counseling clients, drafting and executing wills, trusts, advance directives, and other testamentary instruments and legal documents used in probate, construction, accounting and guardianship proceedings. Both the doctrinal and skills components of the course will emphasize the applicable New York statutory law but evaluate it in a comparative context. The course will also introduce students to the relevant professional responsibility issues which practitioners may expect to encounter.