The Three Most Important Subpoenas you Must Serve in your Trust or Will Contest Case

[Music] Hi this is Stuart Albertson with Albertan and Davidson and I want to talk to you just briefly about three important sets of documents that we need to get quickly in a type of trust or will contest so this happens when a client has already shown up and hired a lawyer they've already filed their trust contest or their will contest and now the question is what documents do we need to begin the case to begin our discovery to begin strategizing how we're going to overturn the trust or the will that is a product of undue influence or lack of capacity and these come down to three subpoenas and they should go out quickly you want to get these documents quickly to make sure you get the full set of documents and then you want to have the right people review them once you have them so that they can help shape your case going forward help shape your discovery and hopefully shape a successful outcome in invalidating a trust or a will that is the product of undue influence or lack of capacity the first set of documents that we want to subpoena right away are from the estate planning attorney so the estate plan attorney who drafted the trust or the will or both we want to get a letter to them immediately telling them to safeguard their file and they can be accept expecting a subpoena once they receive that subpoena they have a short time to respond and most estate planning attorneys will send us their files so that we can review them to see what were the circumstances around the creation of the trust or the will sometimes these attorneys though they decide they don't want to send the file and that's not a problem because then we can file a motion to compel as what we call it file that in court and we'll get a judge to order them to give us the documents in many cases once we file this motion to compel the estate planning attorney will agree and send over the files so that's the first set of documents you must get in a trust and will contest and the sooner the better the second set of documents will be the medical records and these are rich especially if the decedent had both providers so you want to send out a subpoena to every single medical provider that you are aware of once you have the first set of medical records there will be other doctors other hospitals other medical providers that you'll find in those medical records in many cases neurologists and those are really good medical records to get so you'll want to send out subsequent subpoenas for those documents as well most big medical providers are very good at responding to subpoenas and in short order if you give them a subpoena that's well drafted and it details exactly what you're looking for you will have medical records that you can review to look for things such as dementia Alzheimer's and other mental cognitive deficits that may have impacted the decedent at the time that the will or trust was created that you're alleging was the product to undue influence or lack of capacity finally the last set of Records are the financial records and they're also rich especially if there's a wrongdoer who did exercise undue influence over your mom or your dad before they passed away this person generally can't wait to get their hands on the money until the person dies so they get their hands on the money during life time and they start taking a lot of cash withdrawals from the ATM they'll write checks to themselves calling them cash they may even sign them for the decedent your mom or your father and take this money and start spending you know using it for whatever it is they want to use it for so once you file the trust or will contest you want to jump quickly on these three sets of documents once you have them they're gonna go a long way in getting you to a good settlement or you're gonna be able to prove at the time of trial that in fact undue influence or lack of capacity did take place in the creation of the will and the trust. [Music] [Applause] [Music]