Judge Glen Reiser's Courtroom Chronicles in Trust and Estate Law

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Welcome in my name is Ron Greenwald and this is the Ron Greenwald Podcast, and the purpose of this podcast is to bring you great stories and great insights to help you hopefully have a family that stays together and maybe, after you're thinking about what's going to happen to my children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren after I pass, will they have Thanksgiving together, will they have Christmas together, will they celebrate Passover together?

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And I am thrilled this probably could be one of the most important podcasts you ever listen to, because you are going to be listening to the Honorable Judge, glenn Reeser, and he has spent 20 years on the bench in the County of Ventura as a probate estates, trust and guardianship judge, and if you think it's a privilege to be named as the successor trustee to your family's estate, you may want to listen very carefully to what he's about to say.

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Judge, it's an honor, a true honor, to have you on with us today.

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Thank you for joining us and welcome.

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Tell us a little bit about you before we get into the questions.

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Good morning, ron.

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It is a pleasure to be here.

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Thank you for the invitation.

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So I'm a retired judge.

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Actually I was a litigation lawyer.

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I did a lot of trial and appellate work for more than 20 years, but that was in a different century with a different cadence of life.

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It would be.

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I'm not sure I would ever want to be a lawyer today.

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It's very chaotic.

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And then I was a judge for more than 20 years, as you stated, in Ventura County, most of which was trust probates and conservatorships exclusively.

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I did retire five and a half years ago.

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I worked with Jams, which is an ADR provider.

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It's a very large international company, but I do exclusively now trust probate and conservatorship mediation and some would call reference work.

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It's continued to do trials for various trial courts in California and, through the end of 2022, at least, I was the trainer for all of the judges in California certainly a trainer across the board in the disciplines of trust probates and conservatorships, so I know most of the judges in California who do this.

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It's a very judge-centric profession and so you never know what's going to happen in the trial court, but there's some rules that you can typically rely on.

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So again, the listening audience is certainly a mix of professionals who know you very well and obviously the layperson who is going to see their estate planning attorney and want to get those documents in place.

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If you could say to the estate planner the one who writes the documents, given your 20 years on the bench, what is the overriding, overarching theme that causes them now to come into arbitration and mediation?

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That you're seeing in your last four years with JAMS.

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Well, if it's been five and a half years, five and a half, sorry.

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I wouldn't have a job if it wasn't for estate planners.

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So thank you all to estate planners for you know, giving me this encore occupation, if you will senior who comes into your office has what you might call full contractual capacity and so appreciate that.

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You know, if you are not a geriatric, psychiatrist or psychologist which I think no attorney in California is you may want to opt for a testamentary capacity, which is a will rather than a trust, because the trust requires contractual capacity and a will requires only testamentary capacity, and the chasm between those two concepts is so massive that if you want to err on the side of caution, you would go to testamentary capacity.

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And what do you say to them about naming children as successor trustees?

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So, as a professional mediator who does trust cases virtually every day, I don't think I've ever met a trustee in litigation who says gosh, I'm glad I was appointed trustee.

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They all hate it.

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It's a thankless task, it's a curse to most because there's no glory in it, and, at least in my world invariably you wind up getting sued.

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So yes, I understand there are families that get along and everything works perfectly, but I never see those.

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I only see the other ones.

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Ron.

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So, like today, you have a case after this, and can you I mean obviously without giving the names away can you give us a little bit of background of what you're going to be facing today?

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Well, the case isn't secretive, because I went to trial, the estate planner wrote an estate plan and the husband and wife and the wife passed first, and then the husband, reading the estate plan, followed the letter of it and reappointed the assets in ways that the wife's children were unhappy with.

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And so the wife's children went to court and asked the judge.

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They said mom never would have agreed to this.

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So can you please reform this trust?

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And guess what the trial judge did?

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Do that?

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Uh, but years have passed since the, since the trustee had acted, and so the beneficiary, who's the husband's son, now supposedly has to return the money that he received.

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And the trustee is I think the word is heaped with trouble, because hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent litigating unsuccessfully.

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So the trustee fees, the attorney fees, they're all in play both ways, and so my job today, obviously, is to solve that puzzle and to send them home smiling, or equally unsmiling as the case may be, is it mostly equally unsmiling?

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Is that pretty much the way it goes after a day with you, judge?

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Yes, At the end of the day everyone's equally unsmiling.

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But the next day, you know the celebrations begin, you know the confetti is thrown because people can then look forward to the rest of their lives, as opposed to waking up in the middle of the night every night worrying about how they answered four minarogatory 17.2.

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What is that 17?

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Oh, I'm sorry.

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There are certain ways to litigate cases and it's very work and litigant intensive.

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So there's discovery devices that lawyers, to satisfy the standard of care, have to utilize, which requires basically no stone unturned in terms of recreating, in this case, accountings and expenses and everything else.

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So I'm always interested.

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You've spent over 10 years on the court, on the court, on the bench, as a probate of states and trust and guardianship.

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Yes, do you think you've heard it all, or is there one case that you go?

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This was the topper of the topper.

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Ron, you think you've heard it all, and there's certain patterns that repeat themselves, but there's always something new and novel every day.

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Every case is different, every family is different, every trust is a snowflake.

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There's no two trusts that are alike, and so that's.

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The family dynamic is the driving force in most of these cases and the relationships drive these cases.

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So every case is different and, factually, most things I've seen, yes, so do you think you have an honorary degree in psychology and the law, or just having listened to?

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these stories.

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Well, it's interesting because the um, the work of mediation, of being a mediator, is a different skill set than being a judge, because a mediator doesn't pontificate, a mediator listens and creates rapport and then creates resolution and that is, you know, at the top of the list, is psychotherapist probably, then Rabbi, priest, minister, and then there's a few other jobs and then judges sort of.

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You know, I don't know value level, part of the lower echelon of skills you know at an evaluative level, part of the lower echelon of skills.

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So, in terms of, is it the money or is it the sibling rivalry that started back when they were four years old and the sister got thrown off the tricycle and now I'm gonna come and get you, or is it them?

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is it the money?

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The money is the catalyst, but it's not the money.

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Is the relationships right?

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Is the lifetime of expectation, of hope?

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You know dealing with siblings, of dealing with step parents.

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You know control power, all of those things are at play.

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And so it's interesting.

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You ask that because when I first took this assignment, I had to go to the classes that I taught for many years after that and I had a commissioner from Contra Costa County and the the Don.

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And Don said Glenn, you're only gonna see three kinds of litigation cases.

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You guys see the trustee, you can't be trusted, right.

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You're going to see the, the wicked step mom, step step-dad cases, the blended family cases, and then you're going to see the state called them the pink bicycle, blue bicycle cases, where you know people, you know children compete with one another in one form or fashion and 50, 60 years later it plays out on a stage of litigation and mediation out on the stage of litigation and mediation.

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So again, I, as you know, what I've done for the last 15 years is heard a lot of these in the.

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I mean I do real estate, so I get to hear a lot of these stories because I am not charging by the hour when I'm out in the property and I just go home and I'm going.

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Really, I mean, as a judge, how do you just not go?

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people get a clue because everyone constitutionally has a right to petition for the redress of grievances, and appreciate that at most estate plans, at their inception, are pretty egalitarian, where you know mom and dad, they've got two kids, three, three kids, seven kids, ten kids, and everyone shares equally.

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But then you know, invariably one of the spouses passes first and then life goes on for the survivor, and how that life goes on often means a change, a tweak sometimes, sometimes a larger change in their estate plan and in a survivor's trust, if they have a sub-trust.

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And so when that ultimate, I mean, for example, right in many families there's a lot of children that they.

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You know America's not like it was 100 years ago.

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People disperse, the children go on, they marry, they have kids, grandkids, they're living their lives.

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Quite often one child stays home to take care of the surviving parent, either nearby or in the family home themselves, and everybody else is out enjoying their lives, and that person has a very difficult job of taking care of an elder right, it's not easy and quite often they're doing, you know, what would otherwise be nursing care, caregiving services, writing checks, you know, taking mom or dad to the physician's office offices speaking of my mom, right and and there's a lot of work there and the estate plan, you know, as that person gets older, can change a little bit.

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You know, dad, you know, don't you think I should get a little more for doing this?

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Or just you know, maybe unilateral from the parent themselves?

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And so when the other siblings see this At their parents end of life, they go well, dad or mom like me best, or certainly equal, not less than him, and it's odd right somebody has the gloves come out unduly influenced the parent, or there was a lack of capacity, or both.

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So you're very well known in the in the legal community for Breslin and you penned an article, you co-authored an article in January.

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A little bit about that, without going deep, deep into the weeds for the listening audience, and again, remember I'm telling the lead of this podcast is you really think you want to be named a successor trustee?

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And so tell us a little bit about that ruling and where it's going.

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So with that again getting into the weeds.

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In California, historically, mediation is voluntary.

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Alternate dispute resolution is voluntary, and the theory was that the courts are supposed to be free, even though technically they're not.

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There's fees that are paid constantly, but courts are supposed to be free.

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So if there's mediation it has to be something outside of the court system and voluntary.

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In the civil world that was always the case.

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There was this unusual case that arose out of the San Domingo Valley in Santa Barbara County where the litigants, even though they were in court for trial, were outside the judge's presence and they reached a settlement where, you know, a lot of the family members weren't there and the court approved the settlement even though it adversely affected the non-present family members to the tune of three-quarters of a million dollars in attorney fees.

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And they objected and the Court of Appeals said too bad, you know you could have litigated the case.

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You didn't, these other people did, and so if this settlement adversely affects you, that's, that's your problem.

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You didn't participate in the case, and and so my brain got working and I thought well, what difference does it make if you're actually in the courthouse with no judge there or if you're in a court ordered mediation and so, recognizing that it had to be in what we call the tri-counties the 805, because that was the appellate court that made that decision we waited for the we me and some cooperative attorneys waited for a case in which we could try to extend that doctrine to a mediation, and I wasn't intending to get a published decision out of it.

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But what did happen when I settled the Breslin case was that Breslin case had 24 beneficiaries.

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Only five showed up at my mediation, 19 did not, and in that case it wasn't family members, it was Catholic charities who threw each other under the bus, and so the five who showed up got paid and the 19 who didn't didn't, and Court of Appeal said yeah, well, you know you should have gone to the mediation too bad, and so it also.

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The case also said that in trust, uniquely, a court can order a case to mediation, and so that case was published a few years ago.

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It's still the law.

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Every trial judge in California utilizes it to move cases off their docket, because there are a plethora of trust and probate litigation cases around the state, more than you could imagine, and so they're clearing their calendars by ordering cases to mediation.

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And if people don't show up, even if they're not litigating, even if they don't have lawyers, bad things can happen.

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That's not saying they will, because they may have allies within the litigants who don't throw them under the bus.

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But you know, if there's a few hundred thousand dollars of difference, that needs, they need to resolve the case.

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Well, guess who takes that hit?

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right the person who's not in the room.

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And so the article in January in terms of a seamless fabric need tailoring.

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What again?

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As a layperson, what was the meaning of that?

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In terms of the tailoring of a settlement.

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It's controversial.

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In.

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California.

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I do work all around the state.

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In Northern California and Southern California lawyers litigate these cases differently.

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Right In Northern California there's a tendency to push a case up to trial, if they can, before the case goes to mediation, because then the lawyers know everything there is to know about the case and they can properly, you know, advise the client.

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That's the theory.

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Right in Southern California, more often than not we litigate, we mediate rather early to save, you know, six to seven figures in attorney fees and to try to sort of do discovery on the fly, if you will, to get cases, you know, resolved sooner rather than later.

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Idea that a court can order a case to mediation and in essence take the this stratagem out of lawyering.

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In that regard causes rankles a lot of attorneys and so there's still some a lot of pushback toward that in the attorney sector.

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Though, as you can imagine, because it takes cases off of a judge's desk, there's not as much controversy in the in the jurisprudence in the judicial sector.

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For so many reasons, but probably more than anything else, all of these cases are there's no juries in these cases.

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Generally these are all judge cases because of the way trust law evolved over the last thousand years and so to actually write an opinion after trial.

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It takes a judge dozens of hours, often weekends, nights, just to write an opinion in a single case, and so to take that off of a judge's desk is a godsend to my colleagues, but to the lawyers.

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Forcing a case into mediation when they don't think they're ready is often not helpful to them.

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So I am curious how many cases come across your desk on a weekly basis.

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Curious, how many cases come across your desk on a weekly basis and then is there a criteria that you use to say yes or no.

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Obviously so you know ADR is expensive to some degree, but when it's the trust, you know, know most houses in California, even if they're old houses, depending on where I'm located it could be a million dollars or more.

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And so when people pass that, these estates, you know in addition to the real property, you know they're generally seven figure cases, sometimes eight figures, sometimes nine figures, sometimes 10 figure cases, sometimes eight figures, sometimes nine figures, sometimes ten figure cases.

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There's no criteria per se, but I do three to four mediations a week.

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I spend a whole day with the family, and sometimes into the evening and sometimes late into the evening to get it resolved, but they're pretty pleased the next day.

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Are you issuing the?

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I mean, I was like, are you issuing the results of that day or is it?

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You sit on this and I mean how do you?

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How does your day go?

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It's a great question.

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No one's ever asked me that before.

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So the morning is about meeting people and cause.

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Every room is different, every person's different, everyone's needs, interests, challenges are different, and so I spend most of the morning figuring people out and getting to know who they are, where they're from and what their life is about, so that I can craft a result that makes a material difference in their life.

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I mean that's important, right, that makes a material difference in their life.

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I mean that's important, right, and I mean, even if it's a trustee being named, they just don't want the angst and anxiety of, you know, having somebody chase them for you know, millions of dollars for doing what they thought was the right thing to do.

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Between you know beneficiaries themselves, it's certainly better to have their parents' inheritance be distributed to them rather than to my colleagues in the legal industry, for whom there are a lot of experts.

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They know what they're doing.

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They're fantastic lawyers.

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They're the best lawyers there are in terms of, you know, retaining a professional, but they are specialists in the trust and probate world and they're very good and they're very expensive, just like I am right.

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So that's how it weighs out.

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Speaking of great legal minds here in San Diego.

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Judge, when I had the privilege of knowing you were going to come on the podcast, I talked to a couple of my friendly attorneys and they wanted me to ask you about a couple things and again, without going into the weeds for the layperson listening audience.

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One was probate section 17206, and is that a government overreach?

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And what is your response to that Judge?

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Is that a government overreach?

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And what is your response to that?

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Judge what is 17,.

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Probate section 17206?

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.

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So appreciate that the trust courts were created in the 1100s by the king of England right To allow for equitable results, because the law courts when people followed rules it didn't always work.

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Equity to the litigants.

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And so the King, when the Crusaders were coming back after you know, being in the Middle East and doing whatever deeds they were doing there, they couldn't get their lands back and so they petitioned the king.

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He created a chance to record, which is an equity court, and the Lord High Chancellor in England still presides over those.

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That is the trust court in America, that's the trust court in every common law country that derives its jurisprudence from the English system.

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And so these are very.

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These cases are all about good conscience.

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So all the years I taught the judges they would ask me questions and the response was, in the final analysis, when you go to bed at night and your head is in the pillow, do you feel you did the right thing?

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And if their answer to that is yes, which it almost always is not always, but almost always is then it's fine.

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The problem is that quite often the legal doctrines you know aren't synchronous necessarily with that result, and so there are three cases in California where you know, things didn't fit neatly into the statutes.

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Two of those cases were mine, one was Breslin, the third one.

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The first one was actually a case out of Los Angeles called Schwartz v LeBeau when I was litigating, which is in a different century.

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Right, it was very difficult to remove a trustee because the statute had some very specific criteria and it was hard to qualify for the criteria even if there was, you know, conflict, serious conflict with the trustee, as long as the trustee could say I can still properly administer the trust.

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That the hostility was was never sufficient to remove a trustee.

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So a case came out, schwartz versus LeBeau, where the trial judge in Los Angeles said you know what?

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I just want a new trustee, I'm not comfortable with these allegations.

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And it was appealed and the Court of Appeal in that case said well, probate code 17206, all probate code 17206 is is a plenary section that says in for us, the trial courts can use whatever procedure they need to accomplish their purposes.

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This is very generic sort of you know, un-cathered allowance to, in my mind, to create procedure that causes, that allows the court to function as a court of equity.

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So this court, this court versus LeBeau, says yeah, we've read the statute.

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But you know what you know.

00:27:15.532 --> 00:27:19.742
If the judge wants a new trustee, fine, because that's within the court's power.

00:27:19.742 --> 00:27:27.855
Well, you know, it's a case I taught for years because obviously it's a judicial empowerment case.

00:27:27.875 --> 00:27:29.978
That was, you know, in maybe 2008.

00:27:29.978 --> 00:27:43.932
And then in 2011, I had this case called Christie v Kimball, where Danita Christie bless her heart, I hope she still living uh was handling, not as a trustee, but some of mom's stuff.

00:27:43.932 --> 00:27:50.375
And I said, mrs Christie, you'll need to account for that in statutory fashion.

00:27:50.375 --> 00:27:57.596
And she said you can't make me because there's no statute that says I can do that because I'm not the trustee.

00:27:57.596 --> 00:28:01.269
And I said well, take it up with the Court of Appeal.

00:28:01.269 --> 00:28:04.888
And the Court of Appeal then says they said two things.

00:28:04.888 --> 00:28:22.776
First of all, in the first sentence of the published case, it says that in trusts and estates, there's nothing more elegant than an accountant, which I thought was kind of a lovely, more elegant, elegant yes, interesting, kind of an interesting entree.

00:28:23.210 --> 00:28:29.657
Well, because it gives you a picture a very detailed, you know, this is like an MRI of an estate right.

00:28:29.657 --> 00:28:38.294
And so they relied on 17-206 and said, hey, if the judge wants to get an accounting, it's within the judge's power.

00:28:38.294 --> 00:28:49.027
And then, most recently in Breslin, the court just goes, yeah, 17-206, if the trial court in a trust case wants to order a case to mediation, that's 17-206.

00:28:49.027 --> 00:28:55.945
So is it a usurpation of the legislature?

00:28:55.945 --> 00:29:02.615
I don't think so, necessarily right.

00:29:02.615 --> 00:29:07.388
It's just that when you manage a court of equity, you just have to have a little bit of flexibility to do things that make the court operate smoothly.

00:29:07.388 --> 00:29:26.540
Unlike, unlike, a civil case right, it's in a lawsuit typically, when I would teach judges the crossover from probate to civil and vice versa, because not all of my judges had ever had a civil background right, so it was helpful to give them some civil courses.

00:29:29.010 --> 00:29:38.981
I portrayed a trust and probate court as a PT boat which could zip around, and civil court as an aircraft carrier that would take 25 miles to turn around.

00:29:38.981 --> 00:30:02.526
And so that's the idea is trust and probate courts, because especially in probate, where you're supposed to open and close the probate estate within a year, a year and a half if there's a 706 estate tax return, that they need to do things in an abbreviated fashion.

00:30:03.833 --> 00:30:21.897
So you spoke about accounting quite a bit and again for the layperson who thinks they want this job, let's talk a little bit about how many of the cases that you come across in jams or on the bench had to do with lack thereof accounting.

00:30:24.423 --> 00:30:28.435
So many, I mean every case.

00:30:28.435 --> 00:30:33.465
I would say accounting in some form or fashion is part of every case, right?

00:30:33.465 --> 00:30:39.682
Because accounting is the trustee doing her or his job.

00:30:39.682 --> 00:30:43.029
Because accounting is the trustee doing her or his job.

00:30:43.029 --> 00:31:04.474
And when people want to see what's going on, if there's been a formal accounting, typically there's objections to it for whatever reason, and that in and of itself is a prospective trial, even if it's a capacity, undue influence case challenging a testamentary instrument, a trust or a trust amendment.

00:31:04.474 --> 00:31:10.500
Most often people want to know what's going on in order to close out the case.

00:31:10.500 --> 00:31:12.313
Right, you know what's been.

00:31:12.313 --> 00:31:13.858
How much is there?

00:31:13.858 --> 00:31:15.676
What's the money been spent on?

00:31:15.676 --> 00:31:22.811
Should we discharge the trustee or not been spent on?

00:31:22.811 --> 00:31:24.157
Should we discharge the trustee or not?

00:31:24.178 --> 00:31:27.049
So you know part of my job, I think every day is to exculpate a trustee at some level.

00:31:27.049 --> 00:31:31.260
And just again, I'd like you to express your thoughts on the word co-trustee.

00:31:35.715 --> 00:31:44.251
Well, if there's only one trustee, ron, there's never going to be a tie in voting, and so.

00:31:44.251 --> 00:31:56.511
But the problem with one is, you know, a lot of times there's multiple children, a lot of times there's differences of opinion, the one who is appointed, if there's one.

00:31:56.511 --> 00:32:46.910
You know there are people who love control and they love being able to, you know, exercise that control in ways to, you know, to sort of lord that over their siblings in many cases, or their step siblings or their step children, no-transcript.

00:32:46.910 --> 00:32:53.011
And then many cases I have two co-trustees who despise each other and they want each other the other one removed.

00:32:54.515 --> 00:32:58.425
I'm also interested in your time on the bench and your time with JAMS.

00:32:58.425 --> 00:33:07.005
You really have seen the maturity in the state of California of what we call professional fiduciaries administrators.

00:33:07.005 --> 00:33:12.184
What are your thoughts on that profession moving forward over the next 10, 20 years?

00:33:14.816 --> 00:33:21.769
So the most thankless job, I think, is the professional fiduciary.

00:33:21.769 --> 00:33:24.005
It's an extraordinarily difficult job.

00:33:24.005 --> 00:33:32.959
They have to interface directly with family members and caregivers and financial institutions and often lawyers.

00:33:32.959 --> 00:33:40.397
And you know, can be charities whoever has a beneficial interest can be charities whoever has a beneficial interest.

00:33:40.397 --> 00:33:50.210
A lot of their job involves conservatorships, which the legislature is making more and more difficult by the day, and at the same time their licenses are.

00:33:50.230 --> 00:34:00.654
Always people get unhappy with a fiduciary and they threaten to sue them and then the licenses, you know, become jeopardized.

00:34:00.654 --> 00:34:03.583
It's, it's, a very difficult profession.

00:34:03.583 --> 00:34:05.548
It's not getting any easier.

00:34:05.548 --> 00:34:08.798
I respect all the professional fiduciaries in california.

00:34:08.798 --> 00:34:09.581
They're fabulous.

00:34:09.581 --> 00:34:30.847
Uh, you know, in in the old days, you know, quarter of a century ago or more, uh, you had to have really thick skin to be a fiduciary probably still do, because you have to be tough and there's just so much going on.

00:34:30.847 --> 00:34:53.228
If you have a vibrant practice, like many of my professional fiduciaries do, the demands are ceaseless and if you don't call somebody, be back right away because of, you know mom's canker sore then you know you're gonna possibly wind up in court because of it.

00:34:53.228 --> 00:34:54.331
And so who wants to?

00:34:54.331 --> 00:34:55.500
You know who wants that job.

00:34:56.344 --> 00:34:57.931
That is a thankless job, so.

00:34:57.931 --> 00:34:58.673
I do have to.

00:34:58.673 --> 00:35:00.081
I'm going to digress a little bit.

00:35:00.081 --> 00:35:14.239
I know you got your undergraduate at University of California, santa Barbara, and your law degree at UCLA, yeah, and I just always ask, and people that went to UCSB, what was Halloween?

00:35:14.239 --> 00:35:15.605
Was Halloween like?

00:35:15.605 --> 00:35:17.840
Was Halloween when you were there?

00:35:17.840 --> 00:35:21.248
Like it became back like 20, 30 years ago?

00:35:21.248 --> 00:35:23.862
That's a totally crazy question.

00:35:30.096 --> 00:35:31.619
There was nothing special about it.

00:35:31.619 --> 00:35:33.485
Everybody was doing.

00:35:33.485 --> 00:35:37.445
You know, it was a very social environment when I was there.

00:35:37.445 --> 00:35:40.521
It was a very social environment when I was there.

00:35:40.521 --> 00:35:44.909
My theory was if you went to class you would get a B, and if you read the book you would get an A.

00:35:44.909 --> 00:35:48.438
Otherwise just enjoy your life.

00:35:48.458 --> 00:35:51.762
Well, I'm going to go off on a very personal story.

00:35:51.762 --> 00:36:05.922
I won't share it here, but when you do come to San Diego next time you're in San Diego, I have a great UCSB story.

00:36:05.922 --> 00:36:07.744
I have a son who is now 38 years old, so he was in college.

00:36:07.744 --> 00:36:09.668
He wasn't at UCSB, but he went to UCSB to visit friends.

00:36:09.668 --> 00:36:16.166
So 20 years ago, when he went to college on in the Halloween period of time.

00:36:16.166 --> 00:36:17.577
So I'm not even going to.

00:36:17.577 --> 00:36:19.422
People can call me and ask me the details.

00:36:26.494 --> 00:36:31.887
Every you know it's now very difficult to get into UCSB and it's a very prestigious university and I understand students studied very, very hard there.

00:36:31.887 --> 00:36:35.125
It's just that 50 years ago that was not the rule.

00:36:37.195 --> 00:36:38.438
Judge, we want to wrap up.

00:36:38.438 --> 00:36:41.987
I know you have a busy schedule Again being a judge.

00:36:41.987 --> 00:36:52.202
I want to allow you that final gavel and give pearls of wisdom both to the legal profession, if you can kind of blend the legal profession and the layperson.

00:36:52.202 --> 00:36:58.163
So I don't think there's ever going to be a shortage of work for the litigating attorneys and for you.

00:36:58.163 --> 00:37:20.548
But if we can help somebody again write that plan so they don't end up in litigation, I'm going to leave the last word to you so is that loris, testators, right people who sign trusts or wills, get it.

00:37:20.670 --> 00:37:42.110
You want to keep everything in the family, but think about using a professional fiduciary as the trustee, because when you pass, shockingly, because you're not going to believe what I'm about to tell you, the glue that holds the family together will have fallen apart.

00:37:42.110 --> 00:37:54.882
And while there may be alliances among your children, it's not always kumbaya across the board, and generally it's not, and the ones I see it's never the case.

00:37:54.882 --> 00:38:08.097
And so, that being said, think and I get it there's an expense, not a huge expense, but there's an expense associated with professional fiduciary that your child may waive as a trustee.

00:38:08.097 --> 00:38:45.483
But if you want your children suing each other after you're gone, then you know, either, in some cases by appointing one child as the Lord, but in many, many, many cases, if you don't give ifs, equally you're asking for trouble, and especially if everything is not cleared with the kids beforehand, because people get surprises after their parent dies and kids are not going to blame you.

00:38:45.483 --> 00:38:54.414
I mean, I'll blame you in mediation, but your kids are not going to blame you, and so they're going to blame the other children.

00:38:54.414 --> 00:38:57.896
And so you just have to appreciate that, even though.

00:38:58.516 --> 00:39:11.204
Family happenings at the house now are great and everybody comes and the grandkids come and it's all wonderful, the heart of that dynamic.

00:39:11.204 --> 00:39:14.626
And you've worked hard your whole life and you've saved up.

00:39:14.626 --> 00:39:28.527
I know it's for a rainy day, but ultimately for the children's inheritance.

00:39:28.527 --> 00:39:32.702
And if you want that to go to lawyers, be my guest.

00:39:32.702 --> 00:39:38.561
You know, I used to be a lawyer, you know, and so many specialists are really good at what they do.

00:39:38.561 --> 00:39:56.762
But if you want your state to pass peacefully, you know, resist the temptation, especially if you're widowed, to start to favor one over the other because you're carving.

00:39:56.762 --> 00:39:57.724
I mean I can.

00:39:57.724 --> 00:40:01.672
I'll have that case in four or five years or 10 years or 20 years.

00:40:01.672 --> 00:40:06.806
I won't be here in 10 years or 20 years, but someone who will be in my shoes will be doing that.

00:40:06.806 --> 00:40:08.623
So I think those are my parting words, ron.

00:40:08.974 --> 00:40:09.255
Judge.

00:40:09.255 --> 00:40:10.780
Thank you, judge Glenn Reaser.

00:40:10.780 --> 00:40:12.686
Thank you for joining us today.

00:40:12.686 --> 00:40:18.197
Good luck today with your is it arbitration, mediation, and we didn't get into that.

00:40:18.277 --> 00:40:20.757
Is it arbitration, mediation?

00:40:20.757 --> 00:40:22.559
And we didn't get into that Arbitration?

00:40:22.559 --> 00:40:41.266
You know JAMS has this massive arbitration practice, but arbitration is just being a judge in a private setting and, while I will do that for my colleagues, where I actually sit as a judge, arbitration to me is work, and I did it for too many years and so I'd rather be a mediator where I solved problems.

00:40:41.266 --> 00:40:55.811
It's like a complicated puzzle, as opposed to having to have a winner and a loser and somebody you know triumph and somebody Thinking you know the judges an idiot, which is something that I had to contend with for decades.

00:40:56.532 --> 00:41:00.753
Well, on that note, we will wish you a great day.

00:41:00.753 --> 00:41:06.001
Good luck today, and I'm very much looking forward to having you come down and join us in San Diego.

00:41:06.001 --> 00:41:09.101
We're very much looking forward to that.

00:41:09.621 --> 00:41:10.204
Happy to do it.

00:41:10.204 --> 00:41:10.806
San Diego.

00:41:10.806 --> 00:41:16.221
By the way, the San Diego Trust and Probate Bar is fantastic.

00:41:18.690 --> 00:41:19.175
Well, you know what?

00:41:19.175 --> 00:41:21.949
That's going to be my teaser for everybody in San Diego to listen to.

00:41:21.949 --> 00:41:26.025
You have to listen to the whole podcast to get to that moment in time.

00:41:26.858 --> 00:41:27.653
They're the best though.

00:41:27.653 --> 00:41:28.717
Well, thank you.

00:41:29.862 --> 00:41:30.563
We do love them.

00:41:30.563 --> 00:41:31.503
Thank you very much.

00:41:31.503 --> 00:41:32.675
Have a great day.

00:41:32.675 --> 00:41:34.541
Thank you so much for joining us.

00:41:35.384 --> 00:41:35.784
Thank you, Ron.

00:41:36.936 --> 00:41:37.860
Thank you for joining us.

00:41:37.860 --> 00:41:41.123
This has been Ron Greenwald, the Ron Greenwald Podcast.

00:41:41.123 --> 00:41:45.724
I hope you will share this with your.

00:41:45.724 --> 00:41:54.659
Have a day where you invite all your children, your grandchildren, cousins, uncles, nieces, nephews, whoever you want, and listen to this podcast.

00:41:54.659 --> 00:41:56.621
Ron Greenwald signing off.