That Time Being Nice Paid Off in the End

In Oregon, where I live and practiced elder law, you can’t disinherit your spouse. If you try, your spouse can choose to have your will or trust ignored and instead receive a percentage of what you owned at death, with the percentage determined by how long you were married. An old woman came to me with that problem. She had been married to a guy for a long time, but it was his second marriage. Shortly before his death, he executed an estate plan that gave all his property to his sons from the first marriage. Because the dead guy had used a trust instead of a will, there was no probate, so I had to sue all five sons to get them collectively to cough up the dough owed to their stepmother. The sons weren’t happy about that. Nobody I ever sued was happy about it. A few days after I had served the sons with the papers, I got a phone call from a lawyer named Edgar Stoyles. I’d heard of Edgar because we both did trusts and estates, but I’d never met him. Edgar got straight to the point. He told me I had no case. The facts alleged in my complaint were wrong. I didn’t understand the law. My client was a thief and a liar who was abusing the legal system to extract money from the grieving family, and by agreeing to represent her, I was equally, if not more loathsome than she. On behalf of the family, he demanded that I immediately dismiss my case and pay damages for the anguish I’d caused them by filing it. <a href="https://medium.com/crows-feet/that-time-being-nice-paid-off-in-the-end-291d1eeb9624">Visit Now</a>