Fiduciary Litigation Update (Live Replay)
At every level, trust litigators and planners are grappling with the aftermath of the historic market turmoil of the last 18 months. Market volatility has put stress on the investment management processes of and decisions made by fiduciaries, potentially exposing trustees to substantial liability. Will there be a rash of new lawsuits by beneficiaries against trustees – or have the declines in the market been so widespread that litigation will be muted? At the same time there is a growing wave of attacks on Family Limited Partnerships and other sophisticated estate planning techniques by beneficiaries, the IRS and others. These two major trends, together with major decisions concerning the statute of limitations under the Uniform Trust Code and other case law developments, will be discussed in this wide-ranging fiduciary litigation update.
- Major case law developments and litigation trends
- Trustee liability arising from trust investment management in the Great Recession
- Growing litigation attacks on Family Limited Partnership and other sophisticated estate planning techniques
- Recent developments surrounding the Uniform Trust Code and the statute of limitations
- Trustee removal and surcharge developments
Gerard G. Brew is a partner in the Newark, New Jersey office of McCarter & English, LLP, where he has a substantial practice in counseling clients and representing them in disputed matters involving estates, trusts, fiduciaries, family issues, partnerships and closely held corporations. Mr. Brew is a Fellow of the American College of Trust & Estate Counsel and Group Vice Chair of the Estate and Trust Litigation and Controversy Group of the ABA’s Section on Real Property & Probate. He is also a member of the Section’s Estate Litigation, Ethics and Malpractice Committees. Before entering private practice he served as a judicial clerk to Judge Nicholas Scalera of the Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division. He received his B.A. from Rutgers University and his J.D. from Rutgers University School of Law.
Matthew Matiasevich is a partner in the San Francisco office of Evans Latham & Campisi, where he specializes in the area of trust and estate litigation. He formerly practiced with Fitzgerald Abbott & Beardsley where he worked on a wide variety of civil litigation matters both at the trial and appellate level. He is currently chair of the Ethics and Malpractice Committee of the Probate and Trust Law Section of the American Bar Association. Mr. Matiasevich is author of the appeals chapter in “California Trust and Probate Litigation” and one of the co-authors of the update to “California Trust and Probate Litigation.” Mr. Matiasevich earned his B.A. from Stanford University and his J.S. from the University of California at Davis.
