Mark your calendars for the following Estate Planning & Probate Section Breakfast Meetings
at the Buckhead Club. 

Details are subject to change.  Check your emails and the Atlanta Bar Association website for updates.

Patterson-Fowlkes v. Chancey, 291 Ga. 601, ___ S.E.2d ___ (2012)

Testamentary Capacity.  In affirming a Superior Court judgment based on the jury's verdict rendered on appeal from an order of the Probate Court upholding the validity of a will, the Supreme Court applied and enunciated established principles. 

The testatrix was 90 years old when she executed the will at issue in the case.  She apparently had showed some signs of dementia, but was able to identify by name her children and grandchildren, although she was wrong respecting some of their ages.  She stated that she owned  "quite a bit" of property, and apparently erroneously stated that she had purchased some acreage for the caveator and for her brother. 

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Denis M. Brown with Abraxas Business Services gave an outstanding presentation at the Estate Planning and Probate Section breakfast on January 9, 2013, titled "Exit Strategy Planning: Achieving Optimum Value for Your Business."

Mr. Brown explained that exit strategy planning coordinates and integrates business planning and estate planning based on the business owner's objectives.  He noted that 67% of business owners of firms with revenues from $5 million to $150 million plan to leave their business within the next 10 years but that more than 75% of them have not done much planning for what will be the most significant financial event of their lives.

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For our October 2012 breakfast, the Section welcomed Stephanie B. ("Stevie") Casteel, of Wallace, Morrison & Casteel, LLP. Ms. Casteel discussed premarital agreements (often called prenuptial agreements or "prenups"): what they are, why your clients should consider using them, and issues which you should consider in advising clients about and drafting these agreements.  She also briefly discussed post-nuptial agreements and cohabitation or domestic partnership agreements, which are similar, but not identical, to prenuptial agreements in the issues which must be addressed, but which can be subject to different standards of enforceability.

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Protecting a Medically Fragile Client's Right to Self-Determination
by Millie Baumbusch, Gaslowitz Frankel, LLC
   

We invited Vergena Montgomery Clark, the owner and Managing Director of IKOR of
Central Atlanta, to speak at our Section breakfast on September 12, 2012. 
Ms. Clark's presentation, "Strategies for Protecting Medically Fragile Client's Rights to Self-Determination," was very informative. 

Ms. Clark began by comparing the medical and legal contexts for determining capacity.  Medically, a judgment about capacity is made
by a physician, and it generally relates to a specific medical decision at hand, rather than a determination about the person's ability to
make decisions about healthcare matters or
other matters. 

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On August 16, 2012, our Section had a special luncheon meeting, at which Professor Jeffrey N. Pennell of the Emory University School of Law gave us an update on recent developments in the wealth transfer arena.  At that time, the future of the estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer tax laws was highly uncertain, with the "sunset" provisions for the 2001 and 2010 laws still firmly in place and the November elections in which both the White House and many seats in the federal House and Senate were up for possible changes of hand. 

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