Product Description

Regarded as one of the best casebooks available for any course, this comprehensive text combines interesting cases, well-tailored notes, and a clear organization into an excellent teaching tool.

The new Seventh Edition retains the late Jesse Dukeminier’s unique blend of wit, erudition, insight, and playfulness and covers all the key topics in a logical, clear organization. Included are interesting cases that are not only fun to read, but fun for professors to teach as well. Cases are enhanced and connected to broader legal principles by well-written notes, questions, and problems and cartoons, illustrations, and photographs provide humorous interruptions and visual commentary at appropriate places within the text. New authors James Lindgren and Robert Sitkoff updated the book to reflect legal change while remaining careful to retain the same interesting mix of cases, engaging notes and flexible organization that makes this a highly successful casebook. Additions and improvements to the previous edition include due attention to new developments in law reform by the ALI and NCCUSL such as: Restatement Third, Trusts (2003, Uniform Trust Code (2000) including proposed 2004 amendments, Restatement (Third) of Property: Wills and Other Donative Transfers (2001, 2003)and Uniform Disclaimer of Property Interests Act (2002. Attention is given to ongoing developments in the law such as inheritance rights of posthumously conceived children, standing of donors in suits against the trustees of charitable trusts, the rise of domestic offshore self-settled spendthrift trusts, the erosion of the rule against perpetuities and the rise of the perpetual, generation-skipping trust. There is enhanced coverage of increasingly important topics such as fiduciary administration and trust investment law (including modern portfolio theory, diversification, the principal and income problem, and measuring damages; and inheritance rights of same-sex partners, inheritance rights of children, with comparison to the other common law countries (which are far more generous to children). Also included is a more logical presentation of nonprobate transfers and their role in estate planning, fully updated tax chapter with attention to new developments such as the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001. Notes, questions, and problems have been revised throughout where appropriate in light of the foregoing and other developments.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #101924 in Books
• Published on: 2005-04-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 1024 pages

About the Author
Jesse Dukeminier of Los Angeles died April 20, 2003. He was professor emeritus at UCLA School of Law, where he taught property law for 40 years, and wrote "Property" and "Wills, Trusts, and Estates." He was the first UCLA Law faculty member to receive a University Distinguished Teaching Award, was twice elected professor of the year and recently received a Lifetime Achievement Award in Teaching. He also practiced law with a Wall Street firm, taught at the University of Chicago and was a visiting professor at HLS from 1989 to 1990. During WWII, he served in the U.S. Army.

Stanley M. Johanson, who joined the Texas faculty in 1963, was in the inaugural group of professors who were elected, in 1995, to the University of Texas Academy of Distinguished Teachers, whose purpose is to give public recognition to outstanding classroom teachers at the University of Texas at Austin. Professor Johanson teaches courses on Wills & Estates and Estate Planning. He is the co-author of Wills, Trusts and Estates (Aspen, 6th ed., 2000), which is used in over 120 American law schools, and is the author of Johanson's Texas Probate Code Annotated (West, 2003) and "Wills," in the Gilbert Law Series (Bar/Bri Group, 2003). In 1997, Professor Johanson received the Treat Award for Excellence, the highest honor bestowed by the National College of Probate Judges. Professor Johanson is a member of the American Law Institute, an Academic Fellow of the American College of Trusts & Estates Council, and an Academic Fellow of the American College of Tax Council. The former editor-in-chief of the Washington Law Review and a Teaching Fellow at the Harvard Law School in 1961-63, Professor Johanson is Of Counsel to Vinson & Elkins, a Houston law firm.

New co-author James Lindgren has been a Professor of Law at Northwestern University since 1996, where he teaches Estates and Trusts, Criminal Law, Professional Responsibility, and Social Science Research. Lindgren has also taught at the Universities of Chicago, Virginia, Texas, and Connecticut and Chicago-Kent College of Law. He has published in many leading law journals, including the Harvard, Stanford, Chicago, Columbia, Pennsylvania, Georgetown, UCLA, and California Law Reviews. In recent years Lindgren has published historical pieces on probate in the Yale Law Journal and William and Mary Law Review. Lindgren, who began his legal career practicing Estate Planning, has also published on formalities and the taxation of private foundations. He is a former chair of the AALS Sections on Scholarship and on Social Science and the Law.

New co-author Robert H. Sitkoff is an Associate Professor of Law at Northwestern University, where he teaches Estates and Trusts, Business Associations, Contracts, and Law and Economics. Sitkoff has received a Dean's Teaching Award at Northwestern and was elected Outstanding Teacher of a First-Year Course by the student body. He has also taught Trusts and Estates at the University of Michigan, and in the next few years he will be a visiting professor teaching Trusts and Estates at Yale, Harvard, and NYU. Sitkoff's scholarship, which has been published in leading law journals such as the Yale Law Journal and the University of Chicago and Cornell Law Reviews, focuses primarily on the law of trusts and estates and on business organizations. In addition to his teaching and writing, Sitkoff is the Reporter for the Uniform Statutory Trust Act. Before joining the Northwestern faculty in 2000, Sitkoff was a law clerk to Chief Judge Richard A. Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

Customer Reviews

Don't Settle for Imitations
Whether you are the law student to whom the book is addressed, or just a savvy layman who needs to fill some gaps quickly, this book just may be all you'll ever need on wills, trusts, and estates. I ordered ten books to research my paper on inter vivos trusts and over half the footnotes reference Dukeminier. In each topical area, the general statutes are explained, often with ancillary explanations of tax treatment, then the authors dive into cases, explaining how the cases were argued and adjudicated. The text flows so well that you feel as though you are having a conversation with the authors. I particularly enjoyed the entertaining anecdotes drawn from pop culture. Do not let the cost of this book be a factor in your decision to purchase it; you may find yourself refering to it when you attend to your own will, trusts, and estate.

Thoughtfully written and thought provoking
Unlike other dry law school casebooks, Dukeminier captures the humanity in this study of Trusts & Estates. The editor footnotes and some of the case studies read anecdotally--giving the concepts a historical and personal dimension. The notes after the cases study the social implications of the courts' decisions. Especially interesting are Dukeminier's disucssions of the implications on the legal order caused by same-sex marriage and transgender issues. This book is thoughtfully crafted, a must read for law students or lawyers interested in this area of the law!

great in-depth intro to wills & trusts
If you want to learn the general law about Wills and Trusts, this is the book. There are other supplements you can buy that can introduce you to the subject, but no other book comes close to going to the depth that this book does. It is helpful to have taken a course in Property before reading this book, so that you will have experience in dealing with the Rule Against Perpetuities.

Ever since G.W. Bush passed the largest tax cut in history, many people think the rich should not be able to endow their children with a large inheritance as it destroys the democratic system we have where everyone has a equal chance at succeeding.
This book has given me another perspective about the issue of inheritance. Suppose for a moment we weren't allowed to transfer anything to our children. If that were to become law, do you really think people would work as hard as they do now, knowing that everything that they have reverts back to the State once they die? Do we want to take away that incentive to work hard?
I don't think so.

Another aspect of this book that I particular enjoy is the way that it is organized. If you ever wanted to know all the different types of trusts there are, this book covers it. It also does a good job of introducing you to tax planning during wealth transfers.

This book also does a good job of making you think. Do you know what happens when two people who are married die at the same time or when it is unclear which one died first? It seems insignificant, but suppose A and B, married, both die in a car crash. A initially willed that everything go to B and C. B willed everything to go to her children. If B died first, A's wealth should go to C. If A died first, B's children and C should get something. What if it's unclear who died first? This book deals with that issue and much more.

Another way that it makes you think is that it offers alternative solutions to the same problems. Did you ever consider other ways the law could be re-written to avoid probate? Every good lawyer knows the traditional ways of avoiding probate - joint tenancy property, life insurance, Iras, pension plans, and trusts. But why do not just re-write the law in probate? What not have universal succession like they do in France? This book covers all of that.

Did you ever want to know the difference between an administrator and executor? What happens if the executor drags his feet during the probate process? What can the beneficiaries do? This book has the answers.

In sum, this is a great book for learning about Wills & Trusts. I highly recommend it.