My dead parents are going to law school

What, like it’s hard?

Of course, my dead parents are not literally going to law school—and neither am I. I don’t have that kind of tuition money, inheritance or not!

In the process of turning this website into a book, however, I realized I needed to do some serious research on estate law. Dealing with an estate can differ wildly from person to person depending on what combination of legal documents your parents had—or didn’t have. My experience alone is not going to cut it.

That’s why I talked a local law professor into letting me informally audit his “Decedents’ Estates and Trusts” course this semester. On Mondays and Wednesdays, I hop on Microsoft Teams for lectures and take lots of notes. I even rented the textbook, which is more than 1,000 pages.

I really missed school. I’m such a nerd.

So far I’ve learned plenty that will help me with the book—and then some. Did you know that “the dead hand” is an actual legal concept referring to the power we give the dead over the property they owned in life? Lawyers are spooky.

This is all to say: expect some updates to the wills/trusts section of the website in the not-too-distant future.

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Thoughts on autonomy & further reading

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What are the shipping costs for a dead mom?