Estate Planning, Probate & Elder Law Attorneys

» Senator Clinton in Probate Court?

I've turned into a political junkie during this election cycle, but one thing I missed -- linked to recently in a post-mortem about sexism and Senator Clinton's loss to Senator Obama -- was this, from January.

Evidently there's a television show called "Morning Joe," and on it someone named Mike Barnicle (the Sailor?) said of Senator Clinton:

"... when she reacts the way she reacts to Obama with just the look, the look toward him, looking like everyone's first wife standing outside a probate court....

I don't think I get it. Does he mean the way a wife would look at her husband in divorce court? Because probate court and divorce court aren't the same thing (at least not in Illinois). It still doesn't make any sense to me.

» Foreign Wills

The procedure for admitting to probate a Will executed in Illinois, by an Illinois resident, is pretty simple. A wrinkle is added if the Will wasn't executed in Illinois. A typical scenario is where a person executes a Will in another state, and then moves to (and dies in) Illinois. Can the "foreign Will" be admitted to probate in Illinois?

The answer is "yes," in the following situations:

1. The Will has already been admitted to probate in another state,

2. The Will, although executed outside Illinois, was executed in accordance with...

a. Illinois law;
b. The law of the state in which it was executed; or
c. The law of the state in which the testator lived when the Will was executed.

The rules about admitting a Will already admitted to probate in another state are found in Section 7-3 of the Probate Act. The big question here is whether the original Will can be obtained from the other state.

Section 7-4 of the Probate Act addresses the admission of a not-yet-probated Will executed outside of Illinois. Proof is easiest when the Will already complies with the execution requirements in Illinois, which are (from Section 4-3 of the Probate Act) as follows:

Every will shall be in writing, signed by the testator or by some person in his presence and by his direction and attested in the presence of the testator by 2 or more credible witnesses.

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» Loans And The Credit Crunch
I’m sure that most of you have been following the credit crunch news. Yesterday the Fed once again lowered rates, but not to the expectations of most of Wall Street. The current credit crunch in my opinion will make the 80’s farm savings and loans crisis look innocent. Bail outs of large [...]