Estate Fights | When History Repeats Itself
- March 8, 2024 - Estate Litigation, Trust Litigation,
I’m Mike Hackard with Hackard Law. We represent heirs in tackling wide-ranging problems in estates and trusts. We do this on a contingency fee basis. Phantom wills, holdover relatives, and dementia induced property transfers are common. Experience counts in addressing these problems. History does repeat itself. If you’d like to speak with us about your estate, trust, or financial elder abuse case, call us at Hackard Law: 916-313-3030. Hackard Law: We don’t get paid for activity; we only get paid for being right. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm1txvkYgzI&ab_channel=HackardLaw[/embed][...]
Continue ReadingThe Value of Experience | Estate and Trust Litigation
- January 9, 2024 - Estate Litigation, Trust Litigation,
I’m Mike Hackard with Hackard Law. We’ve been sharing our videos on YouTube for over seven years now. It’s been a fun, challenging, and invigorating process. It’s also a reminder that talk is different than experience. Some of the subjects that we address are new to us. They might be our initial forays into a niche. Or they just might be something that I thought would be fun to write and talk about. That said, we have made a concentrated effort to share the lessons from experience in our field of litigation – in particular, estate and trust litigation. There are many aphorisms about the benefits of experience and the detriment of its counterpart - inexperience. Here’s one: “Good judgment comes from experience; experie[...]
Continue ReadingArt & Estate Disputes: Who Gets Ownership?
- December 14, 2023 - Estate Litigation, Trust Litigation,
I’m Mike Hackard with Hackard Law. We litigate estate and trust disputes in California’s Superior Courts. We do this on a contingency fee basis. Our Northern California practice covers Sacramento and the Bay Area. Our Southern California practice extends from Los Angeles/Ventura Counties to Orange and San Diego Counties. Estate and trust disputes span a wide spectrum of wrongdoing, assets, and legal complexities. Experience counts. So does loving what we do. At Hackard Law, we love what we do. Our clients are interesting, our cases challenging, and our quest for good results energizing. Our cases are grounded in storytelling. Stories of families, their life’s work, and often interference with long held expectations. Some c[...]
Continue ReadingTrust Contingency Fees | Bridging the Representation Gap
- December 4, 2023 - Trust Litigation,
I’m Mike Hackard with Hackard Law. At Hackard Law we represent heirs and beneficiaries in estate and trust litigation. We do this on a contingency fee basis. Clients often tell us that they don’t have the money to hire us on an hourly basis. Their budgets just don’t support it. We know this is true - studies show that forty to sixty percent of middle-class legal needs are unable to be met by existing legal services. We’re grateful to be able to help some families on a contingency fee basis. The contingency fee agreement allocates a certain percentage of the recovery to the lawyer. We can’t and don’t take all cases offered to us. We must exercise discretion in what we take. There are many factors to consider. Time, place[...]
Continue ReadingTrust Contingency Fees | Risk & Reward
- October 20, 2023 - Estate Litigation, Trust Litigation,
I’m Mike Hackard with Hackard Law. We litigate estate and trust cases on a contingency fee basis in most of California’s large urban areas. These cases involve wealth and wealth transfers. Clients seeking recourse for wrongful exclusion from parents’ or other family members’ estates and trusts have a choice of hourly fee or contingency fee arrangements. There is a distinction. An attorney takes a significant risk in taking a case on a contingent-fee basis. The contingency fee agreement generally allocates a certain percentage of the recovery to the lawyer. As the California Supreme Court explained in Rader v. Thrasher, a 1962 case: “A contingent fee contract, since it involves a gamble on the result, may properly provide [...]
Continue ReadingDisinherited Beneficiaries: Surprise, Surprise!
- October 10, 2023 - Abused Beneficiaries, Trust Litigation,
I’m Mike Hackard with Hackard Law. We litigate disputed wealth transfers – particularly in contentious estate and trust matters. Many of these disputes are unpredicted. In the words of The Andy Griffith Show character Gomer Pyle, “Surprise, surprise, surprise!” Disinherited heirs’ astonishment is triggered when first learning of their exclusion from a parent’s estate. This astonishment turns into indignation when it’s a sibling who wrangled estate assets from their vulnerable, sometimes incapacitated parent. We’re not astonished – we’ve litigated too many of these cases to be surprised. Experience, preparation, and knowledge embolden us to fight these challenges. We litigate on a contingency basis – often [...]
Continue ReadingSummer 2023 | Trust Litigation Heats Up
- July 17, 2023 - Abused Beneficiaries, Trust Litigation,
I’m Mike Hackard with Hackard Law. It’s early summer and all the things that summer is known for are underway. Swimming, travel, weddings, outdoor parties, and for some - summer school. While summer brings family enjoyment, our attention to work issues goes on. Our work summer of ’23 has its own special challenges and rewards. Among them: Retention of high-level experts in science, financial forensics, medicine, and digital crime to assist in preparation of several high-damages fiduciary abuse cases that we’re currently handling. Our practice continues to thrive in both Southern and Northern California contingency fee estate and trust litigation matters. The common failings that bring fiduciary challenges haven’t gone away. [...]
Continue ReadingBetrayal of Trust | Trustee Failure to Distribute Assets
- June 16, 2023 - Abused Beneficiaries, Trust Litigation,
I’m Mike Hackard with Hackard Law. We often represent trust beneficiaries against trustees who have failed to distribute assets. This is a commonplace and ordinary event. While commonplace, it raises red flags. And it might be a betrayal of trust. Failing to distribute hundreds of thousands of dollars, even millions of dollars, to vested beneficiaries is not trivial. Trustee’s responses to requested distributions can be unsettling – full of unanswered questions. Beneficiaries may wonder whether the intransigent trustee is mistaken or intentionally lying. For some trustees, the crisis is of their own making. Inexperience, incompetence, and unaccountability may give false comfort that there is little downside to their failur[...]
Continue ReadingContentious Trusts & Probate | Mediation for Beneficiaries
- January 16, 2023 - Abused Beneficiaries, Trust Litigation,
I’m Mike Hackard of Hackard Law. Our law firm represents domestic and foreign trust beneficiaries facing California contentious trusts and probate matters. We litigate in California’s largest urban areas, including Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Sacramento. Contingency fees are our preferred fee arrangements. If we don’t succeed in trial or settlement, we don’t get paid. All agreements must conform to California law and disclosures. Our decades-long experience helps steer aggrieved beneficiaries through the rocky waters of trust litigation. Emotional intelligence, coupled with the technical skills, helps to handle large and difficult cases. Many California Courts have massive case backlogs brought on by cou[...]
Continue ReadingSafes & Safe Deposit Boxes in Estates | What’s the Risk?
- December 29, 2022 - Estate Litigation, Trust Litigation,
I’m Mike Hackard with Hackard Law. We litigate contingency fee trust and estate disputes. Hundreds of things can go wrong in trust formation and trust administration. Some preventive measures can help to make some things go right. Safe deposit boxes and home safes are common in family estates. Safe deposit boxes cannot be accessed by anybody. In California, co-renters can access the box without other co-renters present. If the renter is deceased, the person accessing the box must provide a death certificate, driver’s license or other valid ID, and the key to the box. It is my experience, at least as to litigated cases, I’ve never seen it where a decedent provided anyone with a safety deposit box inventory - or for that matte[...]
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