Tag: Illinois estate planning attorney
How Can I Ensure Heirlooms Pass to the Right Person?
Posted on August 14, 2025

Passing down heirlooms is often about more than monetary value. Whether it is a grandfather’s watch, a portrait that has hung in the family home for generations, or a set of china brought over from the old country, these items carry emotional and cultural weight. In high-net-worth families, those heirlooms often sit alongside substantial financial and business assets, and failure to plan carefully can spark long-term family disputes, litigation, and unnecessary loss. If you are part of a family with significant assets you want to protect, ensuring your heirlooms end […]
Attorney-Client Privilege During a Will Contest
Posted on March 26, 2015
Lately, I have been hearing a great deal of talk about a case currently before the Illinois Supreme Court. The high court recently heard oral arguments in a case called Brunton v. Kruger, which asks the court to consider the scope of the accountant-client privilege during probate. Specifically, the court must determine what happens to the privilege after the client dies and to what extend this privilege can be waived. Here are the basic facts of the case: An elderly couple hired an accounting firm to perform estate planning services. […]
How to Proceed in Probate When the Life Status of the “Decedent” is Unknown
Posted on April 29, 2014
Nine years after Samuel Zagaria disappeared, his sister Joanne petitioned the Cook County probate court for a presumption of death. The court complied and appointed Joanne, Zagaria’s only heir, the administrator of her brother’s estate. But in the course of administering the estate and trying to collect insurance benefits, Samuel turned up alive. Unfortunately for Samuel, that was not the end of the story. The physical fact of his existence did not immediately invalidate the legal presumption of death. Samuel had to ask the court to revoke the presumption and […]