LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Written by Nicholas J. Van Brunt^*

Greetings. Welcome to your copy of the long-awaited Issue 31-1 of the Quarterly.

A primary focus of this issue is the recent legislative session and its impact on practitioners and our clients. As noted in Michael Rosen-Prinz’s Letter From The Chair, TEXCOM has had substantial involvement in the legislative process, including making two successful legislative proposals (ALPs) with respect to the management of digital assets by conservators and attorneys-in-fact (Sen. Bill No. 1458 (2023-2024 Reg. Sess.)) and increasing the asset threshold under which small trusts can be terminated without resort to the courts (Sen. Bill No. 1127 (2023-2024 Reg. Sess.)), and giving technical comments that meaningfully impacted legislation that will hopefully ease the administrative burden for practitioners and clients when it comes to smaller probate estates, while ensuring due process rights are preserved for those who may otherwise be impacted by a more streamlined process (Assem. Bill No. 2016 (2023-2024 Reg. Sess.)). But our work goes beyond that and also involves reviewing and following many bills at our subcommittees that directly or indirectly impact our practice area. Accordingly, we begin this Issue with TEXCOM’s own Kristin Yokomoto’s and Mara Mahana’s comprehensive review entitled 2024 Legislation: New Laws That Trust and Estate Practitioners Should Know.

Particularly, with respect to AB 2016, smaller estates that contain real property valued at $750,000 or less (roughly the median home price in California, according to at least some sources) and/or personal property valued at $184,500 or less, may now be disposed of without formal probate administration in many cases. In Assembly Bill 2016: A Study of New Legislation, TEXCOM’s own Lisa B. Roper and Kristen E. Caverly take a deeper dive into this new legislation, which is crucial for the many practitioners who represent clients in these smaller estate matters to understand.