New York Trust and Estate Litigation

Estate disputes are not ordinary commercial litigation. The parties are usually family. The central witness is dead. The evidence is often decades old and sits in the hands of the person being accused. And the proceeding runs in Surrogate’s Court, which has its own procedure, its own culture, and its own expectations of counsel.

We handle these matters from both sides. We represent fiduciaries defending their administration, and we represent beneficiaries who have concluded that something is wrong and cannot get a straight answer.

What we handle

Will contests. Objections to probate on grounds of due execution, testamentary capacity, undue influence, fraud or revocation. New York provides for examination of the attorney-draftsman and the attesting witnesses before objections have to be filed, which means a contest can often be evaluated on real evidence rather than suspicion before anyone commits to litigating it.

Contested accountings. A fiduciary’s accounting is where the administration is actually tested. Objections reach the investments made, the property sold and at what price, the commissions and fees taken, the transactions with the fiduciary’s own interests on the other side, and anything that never made it onto the schedules at all.

Discovery and turnover proceedings. Where estate property is in someone else’s hands. These are the standard vehicle for the accounts that were retitled in the last year of life, the transfers made under a power of attorney, and the property that left the house before anyone took inventory.

Fiduciary removal and suspension. Where an executor, administrator or trustee is not accounting, not acting, self-dealing, or is in a conflict they cannot manage.

Trust disputes. Construction proceedings where an instrument is ambiguous, actions for breach of trust, and disputes among co-trustees who cannot agree.

Kinship proceedings. Establishing who the distributees actually are where the family tree is unclear or contested.

How we approach a dispute

The first question is not how to win but whether to fight. Estate litigation is expensive, it is paid for out of the same pot everyone is arguing over, and it is corrosive to families that have to go on existing afterward. Some disputes have to be tried. Many should be resolved, and resolved earlier than they usually are.

So we start by working out what the case is actually worth and what it will realistically cost to pursue, and we tell you plainly when the answer is that the fight is not worth having. When it is worth having, we prepare it properly from the outset, on the assumption that it will be tried.

The firm also drafts and administers, which matters here. We are reading these instruments with an understanding of how they were built and how the administration should have been conducted, not encountering them cold.