In our last post, we started to tell the story of an elderly man -- age 88 when he died -- who left the bulk of his estate to his lawyer. The lawyer had written the will, and there are rules about that kind of thing in Florida and probably every other state. In corporate law, it's called "self dealing." In probate law, it's called "preparing a testamentary instrument [a will or a trust, say] that gives the lawyer or the lawyer's parent, child, sibling, or spouse any substantial gift from the client."

The man had inherited a tidy sum from a nephew, and the lawyer took over the probate. The man's companion of 37 years said that the lawyer's entrance into their lives changed everything. For one, he wouldn't tell her what he and the lawyer were doing with the probate of the nephew's will.

When she asked why, he said the lawyer had told him to keep quiet about what they were doing, because it was confidential -- an attorney-client privilege thing.

The explanation doesn't hold, though, because the attorney-client privilege only applies to the attorney. The attorney may not discuss client matters with a third party, but the client can tell the National Enquirer if he wants.

The family members weren't left out of the will entirely, but they did get the short end of the stick. They strongly objected to the hundreds of thousands of dollars the new will gave to the attorney and his family. The man had never met them and didn't even know their names, according to the companion's daughter.

Another problem was that the will named the attorney as personal representative. The family petitioned the court, and the court replaced him with a temporary administrator. The new administrator is looking into the man's health history now, too. The family wants to know if he was mentally impaired at all when he signed the will. (The attorney had had power of attorney and had denied the family's requests to see the man's medical records.)

For his part, the attorney declined to comment on the pending litigation. Reporters did get hold of his response to the ethics complaint, where he claimed he was merely a "scrivener" for his elderly client.

He claimed that he had drafted the will, but another attorney had executed it. Not only has the ethics board disagreed with that defense before, but the record includes an affidavit from the other attorney denying that level of involvement.

In addition to the will, the lawyer's billing for the nephew's probate is also at issue. Transfers to escrow, double-billing -- the family cannot seem to find anything the attorney did right.

By the way, none of this happened in Florida. Phew.

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