Trusts, Estates & Probate
Most of this work is quiet. A will and a trust drawn so they say what someone meant. An estate opened, administered and closed without the family falling out over it. And where an estate does turn adversarial, a courtroom lawyer already fluent in the probate code — undue influence, capacity, fiduciary conduct, the elective share.
What the firm handles
- Wills, revocable and irrevocable trusts, and the documents that travel with them — power of attorney, health-care surrogate, living will
- Estate plans drawn to satisfy hilchos yerusha and the Florida probate code at once, including shtar chatzi zachar arrangements
- Estate and trust administration start to finish: opening the estate, notice to creditors, inventory, accountings, distribution, closing
- Advising personal representatives and trustees on what the office actually requires of them, before a mistake becomes a claim
- Homestead, elective share and beneficiary designations settled while they are still planning questions rather than disputes
- Succession for a family business, so the estate and the company do not end up pulling against each other
- Will and trust contests — undue influence, lack of capacity, improper execution
- Breach of fiduciary duty claims against personal representatives and trustees — and their defense
- Accountings, surcharge actions, and removal proceedings
- Elective share, homestead and beneficiary-rights disputes
- Guardianship proceedings and disputes over a guardian’s conduct
- Elder abuse and financial exploitation claims
- Life-insurance proceeds and beneficiary-designation disputes, including proceeds payable to a trust
- Estate administration where the estate itself is the contested asset
- Tortious interference with an expectancy
- Disputes where a family business and an estate are the same fight
Working with estate planners and probate counsel
Estate planners and probate administrators refer contested matters here for a simple reason: the client relationship stays theirs. The firm takes the litigation, keeps referring counsel informed at every stage, and returns the client when it is over. Fee arrangements comply with the Rules Regulating The Florida Bar and are put in writing at the start.
Joshua R. Kon leads trial strategy in trust-and-estate disputes and has done so across a career of commercial litigation — these cases are business cases with a family inside them, and they are handled with both truths in view. It is also why the planning is drafted the way it is: by the lawyer who spends the rest of his week watching what a loose sentence in a will costs a family ten years on.
Before it is a dispute, or once it already is.
Conflict check first, then a view of what the estate actually needs.