For decades, courts and commentators have debated the normative implications of contract procedure. Conservatives argue that mandatory arbitration clauses reduce the burden on the judicial system and that class arbitration waivers, choice-of-law clauses, and jury trial waivers allow businesses...

Californians will inherit hundreds of billions of dollars in the next two decades. Yet Probate Code section 21350(a)(6) - the state's unique quot;care custodianquot; provision - casts a long shadow over this unprecedented transfer of wealth. Section 21350 creates a virtually unrebuttable...

Although most testators hire lawyers, others draft their own wills. Some try to comply with the Wills Act, which requires testamentary instruments to be signed by the testator and by two witnesses. Some create holographic wills, which are valid in about half of American states, and must be in...

For more than 150 years, companies called “heir hunters” have operated in the shadows of the court system. Heir hunters monitor probate filings to identify intestate decedents who have missing or unknown relatives. They then perform genealogical research, locate the decedent's kin, and offer...

This invited reply to Danaya C. Wright & Beth Sterner, Honoring Probable Intent in Intestacy: An Empirical Assessment of the Default Rules and the Modern Family, 42 ACTEC L.J. 341 (2017) recommends the article and offers three gentle criticisms

The civil justice system has struggled to resolve disputes over end-of-life transfers. The two most common grounds for challenging the validity of a gift, will, or trust—mental incapacity and undue influence—are vague, hinge on the state of mind of a dead person, and allow factfinders to...