Family Property Law

The Eighth Edition of this highly-regarded casebook continues its innovative emphasis on the connection between the law of trusts and estates and the changing American family. The Eighth Edition is the first casebook to incorporate the most recent uniform acts from the Uniform Law Commission, including the 2019 Uniform Electronic Wills Act and the 2019 Uniform Probate Code Amendments. The 2019 UPC Amendments dramatically re-write the law of intestate succession and the construction of class gifts in wills and trusts, taking into account the innovations in the 2017 Uniform Parentage Act, which recognizes that a child may have more than two parents, hence more than two sets of grandparents. The 2019 UPC Amendments are incorporated fully into this edition, as is the 2019 Uniform Electronic Wills Act. The principal drafters of the 2019 UPC Amendments were Mary Louise Fellows and Thomas Gallanis, one a former author and one the ongoing author of this title. The casebook thus continues to be on the cutting-edge, discussing the very latest hot topics – in addition to the topics already mentioned, these include digital assets, directed trusts, trust decanting, asset protection trusts, unitrusts, family offices, and donor standing to enforce charitable trusts. The authors of this book have long been at the forefront of law reform in trusts and estates, and this tradition continues under the authorship of Thomas Gallanis, who is the executive director of the Uniform Law Commission's Joint Editorial Board for Uniform Trust and Estate Acts. The Eighth Edition emphasizes problems and questions to facilitate classroom discussion and analysis. Among many other things, the book teaches doctrine and policy, planning and drafting, case analysis and statutory interpretation.