The Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides an up-to-date resource for information on legal ethics. Federal, state and local courts in all jurisdictions look to the Rules for guidance in solving lawyer malpractice cases, disciplinary actions, disqualification issues, sanctions questions and much more. In this volume, black-letter Rules of Professional Conduct are followed by numbered Comments that explain each Rule's purpose and provide suggestions for its practical application. The Rules will help you identify proper conduct in a variety of given situations, review those instances where discretionary action is possible, and define the nature of the relationship between you and your clients, colleagues and the courts.

While continental and comparative lawyers have recently rediscovered succession law as an area of immense practical importance deserving greater academic attention, it is still a neglected field in England. This book aims to reinvigorate the English debate. It brings together contributions by leading academics and practitioners engaging with topical issues as well as questions of fundamental importance in succession law and estate planning. The book will be of interest to both academics and practitioners working in the field, and to non-English comparative lawyers.

Claiming a Promised Inheritance examines those cases where a person is promised a future inheritance and, having acted on it, later discovers that the promise is unfulfilled. The book structures its analysis and argument around the stories of disappointed promisees and their unfulfilled expectations of a future inheritance, and how they might seek redress. It maps and compares the various, and often very diverse range of legal responses that a promisee can avail herself of across different legal areas of the law (ranging from contract law to property law, employment law, unjust and unjustified enrichment law, and succession law) and in both common and civil law traditions. Braun asks how these responses protect the interests of promisees and whether they are sensitive to the context in which such promises are expressed. In doing so, the focus rests on the level of protection the various forms of redress grant, their scope, and the challenges promisees face when brining a claim, but also on the values and interests that are at stake when granting relief. This book argues that due to the social and legal context within which promises of a future inheritance are normally made, promisees are usually in a vulnerable position that can easily by exploited. It further argues that the law is usually more acutely attuned to the risks that the promisor incurs and that greater attention should be paid to the challenges promisees face. Claiming a Promised Inheritance thus complements the traditional viewpoint by bringing into focus the (too often ignored) perspective of promisees.

Normally, forced heirship is primarily associated with a restraint of the decedent's testamentary freedom of disposition. Nevertheless, to effectively protect the forced heirs, forced heirship systems usually also contain various mechanisms to restrain the decedent's lifetime freedom of disposition. Scholars and courts have been debating the proper characterization of these mechanisms in conflicts of laws for decades. Raphael de Barros Fritz addresses the many open questions surrounding this issue by analysing the characterization of forced heirship mechanisms in the laws of Louisiana and Germany.

This book is one of the first to link company law to the law of succession by concentrating on family businesses. It shows that, to understand the legal framework underlying the daily operations of family businesses, one needs legal analysis, empirical data, psychological and sociological knowledge. The book works on the premise that, since many businesses have been founded by families, practitioners need to develop an understanding of the legal background of such businesses and build up experience to be able to create contracts, trusts, foundations and other legal mechanisms to give shape to systems and procedures for the transfer of shares and control within the family. Comparing the national legal order, techniques, and mechanisms in a range of countries, the book examines parallel developments in these fields of law across the world. Finally, it demonstrates the room for companies, shareholders and the members of a family to develop individual solutions within the legal framework for transferring businesses and shares to the next generation.

This invaluable guide is the first comprehensive and practically structured resource on the doctrine of proprietary estoppel. It is presented in a user-friendly format to provide assistance in navigating complex case law on the doctrine.