I’m Mike Hackard with Hackard Law. I’ve practiced law for 45 years. Our YouTube channel is our effort to share the many lessons gained over those years. One lesson that I learned long ago has to do with letter writing. Clients come to us to solve a problem. For many years I handled pharmaceutical cases for those injured by prescription drugs. Now, the common problem that we handle is the abuse or disinheritance of an heir or beneficiary. We meet with our client. It’s a call, a zoom meeting, or a sit down. We hear their story. A caregiver, sibling, or stranger has a part in a disinheritance. A will or trust was suspiciously changed. A property was deviously transferred. The actions were covert. In a sense, under the cover o[...]

This week, Sacramento’s ABC 10 (KXTV) launches an original five-part series on abuses within California’s conservatorship industry. Investigative reporter Andie Judson will go in-depth to cover serious regulatory issues and suspected cases of elder financial exploitation by bad conservators. Hackard Law’s Michael Hackard was interviewed for this series and provided his knowledge and experience in representing elderly clients and their families against fiduciaries who have violated their professional duties and state law. Below you can find the text and trailer for ABC 10’s upcoming series:           COMING SOON: The Price of Care: Investigating California Conservatorships COMING SOON | Many have heard of conservato[...]

I’m Mike Hackard with Hackard Law. We work at being one of California’s leading law firms in estate, trust and elder financial abuse litigation. This aspiration is fueled in part by a collective quest for justice, tolerance, and fair play. Fair play means the equal and honest treatment of others. Adherence to fair play helps to ensure fundamental freedoms, family dignities, and historic rights. When fair play is discounted, unnoticed, or ignored, people suffer. The discovery of wrongdoing can have far-reaching consequences. The terms of public argument can change. We are now seeing this in California with regard to abusive conservatorships. The #FreeBritney movement, coupled with the Netflix movie, “I Care a Lot,” have weak[...]

I’m Mike Hackard with Hackard Law. We work at being one of California’s leading estate and trust litigation law firms. I work at sharing knowledge that I’ve gained over the years in representing beneficiaries, heirs and personal representatives in estate and trust disputes. Psychologists tell us that when we see unstructured messes that we instinctively look to find patterns and order. The patterns and order that we find may be meaningful. Maybe then again, not. Nonetheless, most will agree that estate and trust disputes look like shapeless muddles. Being hardwired to look for patterns, I do. Long experience brings lots of opportunities to look and find patterns in seemingly unrelated events. A common pattern in estate disput[...]

I’m Mike Hackard with Hackard Law. We work at being one of California’s leading estate and trust litigation law firms. We often represent aggrieved beneficiaries and heirs. From the outside looking in, some of our clients may look like “poor little rich kids.” From the inside, we see that there are plenty of trustees who mishandle trust assets. Assets placed in trust to benefit a wealthy parent’s children at his or her death. I’ll give a few examples. A wealthy father is dying. He’s unmarried. He has two children. He turns to an estate planner for help. The estate planner introduces him to a licensed California fiduciary. The licensed for-profit fiduciary advertises on her website that she is “compassionate.” He beli[...]

I’m Mike Hackard. I represented my first clients in estate litigation 45 years ago. Many things have changed over the years. Among them – the emergence, power and ubiquity of the for-profit “professional” guardianship/conservatorship industry. My review of the new Netflix movie I Care A Lot is from a litigator’s perspective. I like one movie reviewer, Helen Shaw’s, take on I Care A Lot. While the movie is one work, she sees it as two films in one. She calls the guardianship opening sequences the “first film.” Her description: “a horror film about the way we exploit and ignore the elderly, particularly frightening because it’s true … demonstrating how (Rosamund) Pike’s corporate-speak pseudo-compassion makes the[...]

Hello, I’m Mike Hackard of Hackard Law. We’re a law firm that civilly prosecutes trust beneficiary and catastrophic injury claims in California’s Superior Courts. Juries are empowered by our system to impose accountability and consequences for those who have broken the rules and caused injury to another. Juries ultimately determine the damages – that which was taken from seniors inflicted by financial elder abuse through no fault of their own. California vests juries with great authority to calculate damage remedies against financial elder abusers. Our statute says that an elder financially abused by a defendant may recover compensatory damages as part of their lawsuit. Compensatory damages include both economic (what was phys[...]

I’m Mike Hackard of Hackard Law. All trust beneficiary litigation, with its potent blend of family feuds, grief over loss, and conflict over money, is ultimately a quest for justice: the prevention of harm, protection of the victims, and pursuit of beneficiary rights. An abused beneficiary experiences several emotions: a deep-rooted mix of family expectations, fear of rejection, and mourning. These cases stem from wrongdoing - from the violation of moral, family or legal rules. Trustees who fraudulently or recklessly breach their duties of loyalty and fidelity may be liable for the emotional distress damages inflicted on the abused beneficiary. Lawsuits may be filed to prevent further harm to beneficiaries. To protect them from cont[...]

I’m Mike Hackard. Our law firm represents plaintiffs in trust, estate and catastrophic injury litigation. We know that when a trustee is indifferent or careless with trust funds and assets, it’s the beneficiaries who suffer. We’re often retained by trust beneficiaries to petition a California Probate Court for an order removing the trustee. A request for a trust accounting is often a part of this petition. A trust accounting will show what the trustee has been up to with funds from the trust – it becomes a lot harder to conceal negligence, carelessness, self-dealing and even embezzlement by the trustee. Trustees run out of excuses for failure to distribute funds, and silence is no defense.  When a petition for trust accountin[...]

Hi, I’m Mike Hackard. I’m a trial advocate. I love what I do. It involves people. Lives rich in humanity. In stories that touch us. That reach across generations. These stories have characters, plots and motives – and mysteries. Trust beneficiary litigation often involves, in the eyes of objective observers, innocent people. People that did no wrong. We’re tasked to speak for them - to do so with respect and humility. To take facts and work them into a compelling narrative. Not to exaggerate. To admit mistakes. To not promise that which we can’t deliver. It’s so important that I listen. That we listen. People make mistakes. Our clients make mistakes. Serious trust beneficiary litigation involves more than mistakes. [...]