Trust Litigation

Trust and estate disputes are often highly contentious, involving emotional family matters that require sophisticated and sensitive legal advocacy. Messerli Kramer’s Trust and Estate litigators focus on steering cases to resolutions that are aligned with our clients’ financial, business, and personal goals. We have a track record of successfully representing trustees, beneficiaries, personal representatives, and interested third parties in state and federal court, arbitration, mediation, and informal negotiations.

To give our clients the best chance of avoiding expensive legal action, Messerli Kramer’s Trust and Estate litigators collaborate with our Estate Planning & Probate attorneys early-on to identify issues and generate creative strategies geared towards non-litigation solutions. However, when disputes move to the courtroom, our litigators leverage their experience to fight aggressively for our clients. In all cases, we strive to maximize efficiency, minimize impact on trust assets, and above all, maintain constant communication with clients to ensure our strategies align with their objectives.

Representative Experience

• Regularly counsel family members and business owners on trust and probate claims.

• Defended trustees in multi-hearing dispute against claims of breach of fiduciary duties brought by beneficiary.

• Defended trustee against claims of self-dealing brought by beneficiary.

• Represented children of deceased in state court trial contesting validity of father’s will based on lack of mental capacity and undue influence.

• Represented personal representative of estate in matter involving claims of breach of fiduciary duty against co-personal representative.

• Represented children of deceased parent in state court lawsuit in which sibling challenged the validity of power of attorney and designations of beneficiaries in life insurance policies.

Professionals