One or more presenters were selected from a call for papers.
Trusts and Estates law was for centuries a fairly stable, if dusty, body of doctrine. Over the past few decades, however, striking changes in the economic, legal and social landscape have prompted an explosion of new doctrinal developments. Major trends in banking and tax law – including the gradual elimination of Glass-Steagall, which resulted in mergers of investment and commercial banking institutions and increased competition for trust business, and the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, which is set to expire next year -- spurred the development of dynasty and domestic asset protection trusts and significant changes in fiduciary duty law governing trustees’ management and investment duties. Banks’ demand for more predictability in law helped jump start a trend away from common law and toward codification, which produced the Uniform Trust Code and increasingly detailed revisions to the Uniform Probate Code. Cultural changes and scientific and medical advances caused states to grapple with their conception of family relationships, and with treatment of end-of-life issues. Presenters and selected commentators will lead the section in a discussion aimed at evaluating these and other trends and developments in Trusts and Estates law. Panelists were selected in response to the section’s call for papers.
Business Meeting at Program Conclusion.