The Florida Rules of Professional Conduct make it clear that a lawyer cannot prepare a testamentary instrument (a will or a trust) that gives the lawyer or the lawyer's parent, child, sibling, or spouse any substantial gift from the client. An exception exists for lawyers preparing a family member's will, but ethics boards are pretty strict about this. The rule is in place in most, if not all, states, as one of the many ways the courts protect testators from undue influence.

Unfortunately, this kind of ethics breach is usually discovered after the testator dies and the estate is in probate. The family's recourse, then, is a legal challenge to the will and a complaint to the state's office of lawyers professional responsibility. In some cases, a legal malpractice claim may also be possible.

The family in a recent case has only gotten as far as challenging the will and reporting the lawyer's alleged misconduct to the ethics board. They claim that the lawyer pressured the elderly man to leave $1.1 million to the lawyer and members of the lawyer's family -- people the old man had never met.

It started in 2007, with the unexpected death of a nephew. The man, then in his early 80s, was the sole heir to his nephew's $2 million estate. Soon after that, the man ran into the lawyer at church, and the lawyer began to represent him in his nephew's probate matter.

And soon after that, the man's personality began to change. According to his longtime companion (whose daughter is leading the will contest), he became secretive, moody and argumentative. She also said he was "ill and easily led" at this point.

During that time, too, he began to complain that his lawyer was pressing him to sign a lot of documents, as well as to write a new will.

His companion said the couple had shared everything about their lives, including information about their finances, for 37 years. But once the lawyer came into the picture, "Everything changed."

We'll continue this in our next post.

Source: Connecticut Post, "Disputed will gives $1.1M to family of lawyer who wrote deceased's will," Frank Juliano, 06/21/2011