The United States Supreme Court’s expansion of the Federal Arbitration Act (the “FAA”) has made arbitration clauses ubiquitous in consumer and employment contracts and provoked heated debate. Recently, though, arbitration clauses have become common in a different context: wills and trusts....

Testators sometimes use "no contest clauses": terms that disinherit anyone who files litigation against the estate. This invited contribution to Law and Contemporary Problems' special issue on The Butterfly Effect in Boilerplate Contract Interpretation examines whether no contest clauses are a...

Many venerable norms in inheritance law were designed to prevent forgery. Most prominently, since 1837, the Wills Act has required testators to express their last wishes in a signed and witnessed writing. Likewise, the court-supervised probate process helped ensure that a donative instrument was...

We think of an unsigned “will” as an oxymoron. Since 1837, the Wills Act has required testators in Anglo-American legal systems to memorialize their last wishes in a signed writing. But recently, several American states have adopted an Australian innovation called harmless error, which...

In many legal systems, the Wills Act requires testators to memorialize their wishes in a signed and witnessed writing. For centuries, courts insisted on strict compliance with these fussy statutory requirements. But in 1975, South Australia adopted the harmless error rule, which permits judges...

Courts responded to COVID-19 by going remote. In early 2020, as lockdown orders swept through the country, virtual hearings—which once were rare—became common. This shift generated fierce debate about how video trials differ from in-person proceedings. Now, though, most courts have reopened,...