Honors Trusts & Estates with Module Course Description - LAWN682

4 Credits

In this course, students will learn and then apply the law governing gratuitous transfers, focusing primarily on wills, trusts, and other will substitutes. It will explore the policies and theories behind donative transfers during life and at death and examine the appilcable doctrinal law based in statute and case law. The course will focus on the practical application of these doctrinal materials and the attorney’s role in planning and administering an estate through the use of simulation exercises and drafting projects. Particular attention will be devoted to interviewing and counseling clients, drafting and analyzing wills, trusts, and other testamentary instruments and legal documents used in probate, construction, accounting and guardianship proceedings. Both the doctrinal and skills component of the course will emphasize the applicable New York statutory law but evaluate it in a comparative context. The course will also introduce the student to the relevant professional responsibility issues that practitioners may expect top encounter. (Prerequisite: Property I.)