Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Practitioner Support: ABA's Free, Online Resources

The Real Property, Probate & Trust section of the American Bar Association (soon to be known as the "Section of Real Estate, Trust & Estate Law") provides probate practitioners nationwide with a tremendous amount of free online support.

1. Magazine Articles by Recognized Experts

The section offers a topic index as well as a free read of many articles from its own bi-monthly magazine, Probate & Property.

For example, Texas' Professor Beyer, along with other contributors, offers up Keeping Current, and detailed practice-specific articles are found in every issue. In May/June, the second half of John Reddy and Marc Bekerman's article appears, "Essential Steps to Take After 'Finishing' the Estate Plan."

2. E-Reports on Current Practice Issues

Its periodic online RPPT E-Report also provides valuable information. One recent article that many might find helpful is "The Strongest Links -- Staying on Track with Track Changes," by Tom Mighell and Dennis Kennedy. If you don't know what "track changes" means, then you may want to read this article - because anyone using Microsoft Office word processing in the creation of legal documents is impacted by them.

3. Extensive Link List

The Section's website also maintains a link list - actually, three: one focused upon real property; another focused upon probate and trust law, and a third list containing more general information sources.

Links provided here include:

US Tax Code Online (searchable database)

Social Security Online (searchable database)

ABA's Tool Kit for Health Care Advance Planning

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