A California Companion for the Course in Wills, Trusts, and Estates 2023-2024

A CALIFORNIA COMPANION is for professors teaching students who may take the California Bar Exam. California law is different from the Uniform Probate Code and the “national” law presented in casebooks. Inheritance rights of parents and children in adoption and nonmarital situations, disqualified transferees, consequences of financial elder abuse, rights of creditors in trust assets, extension of wills rules to nonprobate transfers, rights of trust beneficiaries to information, and special time limits on bringing various claims are some of the areas in which California has distinct rules. The Companion includes all the statutes required for the California Bar Exam, as well as California cases and statutes that give context to the bar statutes, reflect recent legislative changes, or illustrate areas where California law is different from “national” law.

A CALIFORNIA COMPANION is designed for ease of use. Bar statutes are clearly marked and all statutes have been given captions more informative than those in the code books. Principal cases are severely edited for easy classroom use. The detailed Table of Contents lists all included statutes with identifying captions, and all principal cases preceded by a short description identifying the subject matter. The table of cases lists the 52 principal cases and 136 note cases. The Table of Statutes groups statutes into Bar Statutes, other sections of the Probate Code, sections of the Family Code, the Civil Code, the Code of Civil Procedure, and the Welfare and Institutions Code. The Companion also includes Instructions for the California Exam that list the Bar Statutes that may be covered.

Organization of A California Companion tracks Dukeminier & Sitkoff, Wills, Trusts & Estates (11th ed. 2022), but it can easily be used with other casebooks because the Table of Contents clearly shows the subject matter of each section.

New to the 2023-2024 Edition:

• All statutes updated to March 1, 2023
• Bills introduced in the 2023-2024 legislative session
• Ring v. Harmon, which held that a personal representative and beneficiary of an estate had standing to sue for financial elder abuse in her individual capacity as beneficiary rather than in her capacity as personal representative
• Fourteen new note cases