Many trustees employ counsel to provide advice on dealing with and responding to inquiries from beneficiaries. Trustees may believe that their communications with and advice from counsel are confidential and cannot be disclosed to the beneficiaries without their consent. The recent court decision in Fiduciary Trust International of California v. Klein (2017) 9 Cal. App. 5th 1184 is a cautionary tale that warns trustees against assuming that all communications with an attorney are confidential.
In his article for Bloomberg Tax, HBH Principal Andrew Verriere examines the California Court of Appeal’s Breslin v. Breslin decision and the expanded authority of trial courts in trust proceedings.
