Do same sex couples have the same legal rights as other couples?
Protecting Separate Property in Arizona: Basic Principles
Planning a wedding involves countless decisions, from choosing the perfect venue to selecting flowers. But beyond the celebration details, many couples are also considering an important legal and financial step: creating a...more
Blending families often introduce unique dynamics. In addition to the day-to-day challenges and opportunities that blended families create, there is also careful planning to consider when creating or updating an estate plan....more
Each year, “proposal season” begins around Thanksgiving and ends on Valentine’s Day. Then the planning begins — the date, the venue, the guests — and, for many couples, a premarital agreement....more
The end of the year is upon us, and often parents or other individuals make gifts to their children for the maximum amount allowable to avoid federal and state gift taxes. In the absence of marital bliss, how these gifts are...more
In Bean v. Bean, a dissenting co-executor sought relief from a probate court regarding whether certain assets were separate property or community property. No. 05-21-00286-CV, 2022 Tex. App. LEXIS 9058 (Tex. App.—Dallas...more
In In re Estate of Wetzel, a widow and independent administrator of her husband’s estate appealed a trial court’s order denying her requested family allowance. No. 05-20-01104-CV, 2022 Tex. App. LEXIS 2618 (Tex. App.—Dallas...more
This presentation covers trust issues that arise in divorce disputes, such as spouses creating an irrevocable trust, fraud claims to void a trust, conflict of interest issues raised by the same attorney drafting both spouse’s...more
In LaPree v. LaPree, a wife had three trusts where she was the primary beneficiary. No. 03-20-00465-CV, 2022 Tex. App. LEXIS 1325 (Tex. App.—Austin February 24, 2022, no pet. history)....more
It is widely understood in California that inherited assets, unlike assets earned from labor, are the separate property of the receiving spouse. But what if the assets do not come directly from a parent and instead pass from...more
Celebrities and the very rich may enter into premarital agreements. Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel, Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones all signed...more
The family farm is a special asset. The family may have worked hard through decades, maybe even generations, to accumulate and develop the farm’s land, equipment and livestock. The children may be grown and successors to...more
Protecting family assets in the event of a divorce is particularly significant for family business owners, who typically want to avoid sharing ownership with their ex-spouses or their children’s ex-spouses. A prenuptial...more
Conventional wisdom is that a spouse’s earnings from separate property are community property. But it’s not that simple. In Benavides v. Mathis a Texas court denied wife Leticia’s claim to one-half of the income derived from...more