Adam Fried authored "Representing a Beneficiary or Heir in the Quest of Information Necessary to Assess Rights in an Estate or Trust: A Survey of Process and Procedure" for the Probate Law Journal of Ohio.
When unknown inheritance rights are involved, those who have been denied information to which they claim entitlement will turn to counsel to get what they want. Silence breeds suspicion, and against the potential that a disinheritance was caused by a bad acting fiduciary, few would-be inheritors—righteous in their indignation—will simply walk away without a fight. While the potential procedures available to force the production of information depends on the facts and circumstances of each case, good counsel cannot divorce costs from the strategy of pursuit, or in the case of the recalcitrant fiduciary, the cost of blocking access to information. This article explores strategies that our estate litigation team has employed to gather information to enable a client to make an informed decision about what next steps might be available to pursue in a quest to restore or protect an inheritance.
Reprinted from Probate Law Journal of Ohio available in print and on Westlaw with permission from Thomson Reuters. Copyright © 2021. Further use without permission of Thomson Reuters is prohibited. For further information about this publication, please visit https://store.legal.thomsonreuters.com/law-products/Newsletter/Probate-Law-Journal-of-Ohio/p/100028597.