From the category archives:

Commentary

Minnesota attorneys should be aware of new probate and trust law legislation recently signed into law. I have listed the highlights of the new laws on a guest post over at the Practice Law Blawg.

Additionally, in the post, I’ve listed 5 ways you can prepare for the most important (and potentially controversial) provisions of the new laws– those redefining the scope of parent-child relationships.

As an aside: the MSBA’s Practice Blawg frequently has posts of interest even to out-of-state attorneys. Make sure you check out this blog and consider adding it to your blog reader.

Categorized in Commentary, Practice Tips and tagged as , ,

{ 0 comments }

Sample slides for an estate planning presentation

by Boyd Johnson on November 6, 2009

I recently gave a presentation at Bethlehem Baptist Church on estate planning issues for seniors. The slideshare presentation linked below is a version of the slides I created and used. I’m providing them here in case someone finds it helpful in creating their own estate planning presentation.

As you can see by flipping through the slides, I adopted a minimalist design, trying to use as few bullet points as possible. There is almost nothing worse than a presenter who merely reads bullet points off of the screen during a presentation. Instead, I think the speaker should carry the content of the presentation– not the slides– so you won’t find much content on the slides themselves. You’ll have to fill in the content a bit to make the slides make sense. The slides act more as visual placeholders to guide the listener. At the end of the presentation, I provided everyone a booklet on estate planning as a take-away.

Note: Some of the formatting didn’t convert to slideshare very well, so things are a bit off.

Slideshare link: Sample Estate Planning Presentation

Categorized in Commentary and tagged as

{ 0 comments }

Best of Minnesota Estate Law: One year anniversary

August 31, 2009

August 25th marked the one year anniversary of the Minnesota Estate Law blog.
During this time, I’ve covered issues such as abandoned ashes, nonexoneration, lost wills, what never to leave off the final account, rules for probate bonds, what you can expect if there is real estate in your probate, the new case lessons series, and [...]

Read the full article →

Are Amendments to Minnesota’s Probate Code Coming?

November 13, 2008

This summer the Commissioners on Uniform State Laws convened to finalize 2008 amendments to the Uniform Probate Code for recommendation to the states. You can view the 2008 approved amendments (red-line version) by clicking here.
It will be interesting to see whether Minnesota’s legislature adopts any of the new amendments. I’ve heard rumblings that [...]

Read the full article →

Errors in the Statutes

October 31, 2008

When you read through Minnesota’s statutes on probate, it is amazing what you find. In the past month, I’ve found three errors– statutes that refer to non-existent statutes.
Here’s the list:

524.3-303 and 308 refer to clause 19 of 524.1-201. There is no clause 19. Presumably the reference should be clause 24.
524.3-413 refers to 525.02. [...]

Read the full article →