• Recent Article: “Health” in HEMS Means Complete Well-Being

    “Health” in HEMS Means Complete Well-Being, by Claudia E. Tordini and Richard S. Franklin, 50 ACTEC 339 (2025).

    There is little clarity in what “health” means in the typical trust distribution standard of “health, education, maintenance, and support.” Few cases have litigated the definition of what distributions qualify for health. The authors here argue that the Uniform Trust Code should adopt the World Health Organization’s definition of “health” to mean “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity, as defined, interpreted and modified by the World Health Organization from time to time.”

    I am not convinced the adoption of such definition would accomplish the clarity the authors envision. Perhaps the reason there are few litigated cases on the definition of “health” is the fact that it is vague, and providing a more detailed definition, assuming the adopted definition is in fact more detailed, would lead to more litigation. As Timothy Endicott argued in his book Vagueness in Law, there may sometimes be value in vagueness.

  • Leonard D. Jacoby (RIP)

    An early adopter of legal advertising in the U.S., Leonard D. Jacoby died on January 12. After the U.S. Supreme Court allowed lawyers to advertise in Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, Leonard took advantage.

    “In Southern California in the late 1970s, the ads were inescapable — the firm was running up to 100 a week, each ending with the slogan ”Jacoby & Meyers: It’s about time.’” By 1982, Jacoby & Meyers had 43 offices in California and another 18 in New York, and was seeing around 9,000 new clients a month. It was also spending about $1.9 million a year on advertising (about $7 million today).”

  • Caring for Spouses

    End-of-life care falls on more spouses (Washington Post). This is expected to rise. “Adults 65 and older are projected to account for about 1 in 4 Americans by 2050, up more than 30 percent from 2024. That compares with 1 in 10 in the 1980s.”

  • Recent Case: In re Russo (NC Court of Appeals)

    The North Carolina Court of Appeals, in In re Russo, No. COA25-321 (N.C. Ct. App. Jan. 7, 2026), has now made explicit what many practitioners assumed.

    A law firm, as a corporate entity, may not serve as trustee or executor unless authorized under N.C.G.S. § 53-303(a). The Court rejected the argument that the § 53-304(2) “legal services” exception saves the appointment. Acting as trustee or executor, standing alone, is not the practice of law.

  • Recent Article: Fetal Personhood and Inheritance by Unborn Children

    In Fetal Personhood and Inheritance by Unborn Children, by Alyssa A. DiRusso and Emily Price, 50 ACTEC 279 (2025), Professors Alyssa A. DiRusso and Emily Price argue that given the recent rise in law regarding IVF and personhood, there is a gap in the law concerning what they call “nevernatal” children, which are children who die before being born. This gap is manifest in inheritance law, which typically provides that prenatal children inherit equally as born children, but the inheritance law fails to address the inheritance rights of children who inherit, by virtue of being prenatal, but then die before being born, and this can cause some unintended consequences. They argue that purpose trusts should help resolve this discrepancy.

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