July 9, 2014: Learn About Retirement Accounts & Inheritances

• Beneficiaries of estates and trusts, and your parents’ wealth (!), may wish to consider attending this American Bar Association Course on retirement accounts and inheritances.
• There are trillions of inheritance dollars in retirement accounts
• Learning, and knowing, how you inherit an IRA, 401(k) or other retirement account is important
• Many times, there is probate litigation in Florida over the beneficiary designation.
• Consider attending this webinar and learning more about inheritances and retirements
• The webinar is July 9th.

Retirement Accounts: Accidental Inheritance and the Hidden Law of Succession

Wednesday, July 9, 2014
12:30-1:30 pm ET (11:30 am CT, 10:30 am MT, 9:30 am PT)

Speakers:

Melanie Leslie, Professor of Law, Cardozo School of Law
Stewart E. Sterk, H. Bert and Ruth Mack Professor of Real Estate, Law, Cardozo School of Law

Americans currently hold more than $9 trillion in retirement savings accounts. Those accounts, together with the family home, are the principal source of wealth for most working and retired Americans. But when a retirement account holder dies, a one-page fill-in-the-blank beneficiary designation form that the account holder filled out-typically without advice of counsel-generally governs the distribution of the account, trumping the account holder’s will, trust, prenuptial agreement, or divorce decree. To make matters worse, rules that have developed over time to deal with changed circumstances in the wills context generally do not apply to beneficiary designation forms.

This problem, which has already spawned a significant volume of litigation, will become exponentially worse over the coming decade, as more holders of substantial accounts reach the end of their life expectancy and account assets are slated to pass to unintended beneficiaries.

This program will address the problems and pitfalls associated with retirement account inheritance, and should be of interest to practitioners, academics, financial intermediaries, policymakers, and anyone owning assets in a retirement account.

Sponsored by the Legal Education and Uniform Laws Group of the ABA Section of Real Property, Trust and Estate Law

Questions? Contact Bunny Lee at bunny.lee@americanbar.org or 312-988-5651.