Trusts and Estates
Ca. Trs. & Estates Quarterly VOLUME 30, ISSUE 4, 2024
Content
- Chairs of Section Subcommittees
- Editorial Board
- Inside This Issue
- Letter From the Editor
- Litigation Alert
- McLe Self-study Article A Planner's Guide To the Long-awaited California Uniform Directed Trust Act
- McLe Self-study Article Ethica Ex Machina or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Chatgpt | Ethical Considerations For Trusts and Estates Attorneys Using Generative Ai
- McLe Self-study Article Reconsidering the Advance Health Care Directive
- McLe Self-study Article Spears V. Spears: a Shiny New Option For Enforcing a Creditor's Claim Against a Trust
- Tax Alert
- Letter From the Chair
LETTER FROM THE CHAIR
Written by Michael Rosen-Prinz*
As incoming chair of TEXCOM, I have the privilege of writing this and three subsequent columns. Before going any further, I would like to thank my immediate predecessor, Kristen Caverly, for her hard work and leadership as chair of TEXCOM for the prior year. Already a friend and colleague, Kristen has been an inspiration to me for her intelligence, strength, and dependability.
I would now like to use the remaining space in this column to focus on you, the readers of the Quarterly, rather than myself.01 And with that, I would like to sincerely thank you for being a trusts and estates lawyer, for being a member of the CLA Trusts and Estates Section, and for reading this column.
First, thank you for being a trusts and estates lawyer.02 This may not seem like a big deal, but it is. In addition to the toll taken by death and retirement, each year, some of our colleagues are seduced by the attractive alternative of going to work for a bank or other financial services provider as an in-house lawyer or wealth adviser. I understand this is compelling, in part, because of the freedom from tracking billable hours. Usually, lawyer attrition is balanced by new lawyers coming out of law school and joining the profession. But, for a number of reasons, the field of trusts and estates does not seem to be attracting that many new lawyers. Fewer and fewer BigLaw firms support trusts and estates practices. Many top law students, encumbered by crushing debt, hope to be able to pay off their student loans before receiving a lifetime achievement award, and thus are drawn to a job at a big firm, if they can get it. If the firms do not have a trusts and estates department, law students are going to start work in other areas. On the other hand, small firms or solo practitioners that continue to practice trusts and estates law do not necessarily have the resources to train new lawyers. This makes it difficult for law students and new lawyers interested in trusts and estates to find an entry level position.