Retaining the late Jesse Dukeminier's signature blend of wit, erudition, insight, and playfulness, Wills, Trusts, and Estates , now in its Eighth Edition , continues to offer interesting cases, well written notes, and a logical organization. The Eight Edition's new Companion Website , available with adoptions, includes an electronic version of the Teacher's Manual, PowerPoint slides on selected topics, and author updates. A stellar example of a great casebook, Wills, Trusts, and Estates With many new and revised notes, questions, and problems, the carefully updated Eighth Edition Co-authors Robert Sitkoff and James Lindgren took great care to preserve the voice and spirit of Jesse Dukeminier, while fulfilling the trust and expectation among users for timely and relevant coverage, cases, and note material. LOOKING FOR ADDITIONAL RESOURCES TO HELP YOU IN WILLS TRUSTS & ESTATES? TRY EXAMPLES & WILLS TRUSTS & ESTATES 4E (9780735562400) AND INTRODUCTION TO PROPERTY 3E (9780735589353) --TWO OF MANY GREAT STUDY GUIDES FROM WOLTERS KLUWER LAW & BUSINESS.
Best law school textbook so far. Tons of unnecessary gossipy footnotes, which I loved. Ex. "this guy's nephew professionally de-snaked dogs." "this lady was married 4 times to 4 crazy men and blew all her money on seances." Obviously paraphrased but you get the picture. Definitely don't skip the footnotes if you have to read this book for class.
Pretty fun, actually. The chapters on powers of appointment and wealth transfer taxation made me want to fling myself off a cliff but the other chapters were fairly readable and the little inserts with details about the backgrounds of the parties and judges and cases were a lot of fun.
It is a great book. In preparation of your estate documents, it is vital that you have an understanding of what you want and how you can get it.
Don't do it yourself. Paying an attorney to write the documents will cost you hundreds, maybe thousands - but you know what the cost is right now. So it is a fixed and controllable expenditure. Shop around. find an attorney who can do what you want at a fair price.
If you do it yourself, no one will find your mistakes until you are dead. Fixing the mistakes you made may cost your heirs $1,000s, TENS of thousands, maybe HUNDREDS of thousands of dollars. Fixing the mistakes will come at an incredible cost in time, money and frustration for your heirs. It will involve the courts and dealing with the IRS! The old saying: "The attorney who represents himself has a fool for a client."
This was surprisingly enjoyable, as far as case books go! Each chapter was filled with small narrative style portions to make it as readable as possible. The cases were interesting and illustrated the points well.
I think that the content was pretty light though, obviously geared toward beginners and students.
I looked forward to the footnotes in each chapter!
I'm with Meg on this one, this was pretty good as casebooks go. I almost fell out of my chair when I saw that it had pictures - even a full color plate of a Mark Rothko painting!
this is actually pretty good for a textbook. i enjoy the pictures and editor's footnotes about the background of the crazy people involved in the cases. it makes the cases more interesting.
Apparently the Bolsheviks got rid of inheritance altogether in 1918 but had to bring it back four years later because the abolition caused too much political unrest.