Trust & Estate Bandits | CA Estate Litigation
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Blundering trust and estate bandits are still bandits - outlaws secretly or openly defiant of laws and responsibilities that go with the legal obligations required of those who possess or are otherwise responsible for estate or trust assets. While the vast majority of trust and estate professionals take their fiduciary obligations seriously, unfortunately some outliers, some might say "bandits" - those who take "unfair advantage over others usually to procure inordinate payment or profit."1 Inordinate payment may range from outright theft to unconscionable overbilling that drain trusts and estate funds.
Longtime Nevada estate attorney Robert Graham pled guilty last fall "to stealing more than $16 million from clients, many of whom relied financially on trust funds he oversaw."2 Graham was sentenced in December 2017 to 16 to 40 years behind bars. In February 2018 Paul Richard Karan, a New York "attorney who specialized in trusts and estates planning, pleaded guilty to grand larceny and other charges for the theft of more than $2.6 million from the estates and trusts of multiple families ... callously abusing the longtime trust they placed in him as their attorney and advisor ... The defendant systematically drained his victims' trusts and estate funds over a period of more than a decade..." 3
Out-and-out thefts from estates and trusts, once discovered, bring near-universal revulsion and disdain. But what about other efforts that effectively use "unfair advantage" to "procure inordinate payment or profit?" Justia's Verdict is an online site that provides "legal analysis and commentary" on developments in law and politics. Verdict published an article online in November 2014 titled "The Problem of Inflating Billable Hours."4 The article described lawyer conduct referenced as "'churn that bill, baby!' mode." It cites "astonishing stories of lawyers overbilling their clients." Those who practice estate and trust law have seen or hear of anecdotal evidence of such churning: A law firm charging nearly $1 million for a trust defense that didn't go to trial and had only three depositions; Efforts by a law firm to collect almost $200,000 in defense fees that involved minimal pleading and discovery; and a law firm seeking $1 million in fees for recovering $500,000 in assets.
Read more: https://www.hackardlaw.com/blog/2018/03/trust-estate-bandits-ca-estate-litigation.shtml
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