The Probate Lawyer Blog

Forbes.com recently featured an article we wrote about our celebrity-based Trial & Heirs' Top Five Estate Planning Tips for Divorcees.  Here's a shortened version.  Go to Forbes.com for the full article:

1. Update your will and/or trust. Life events like divorces are a critical time to update all estate planning documents with an experienced attorney.

Take the case of Gary Coleman.  Since his death, a variety of documents have surfaced purporting to be his will.  We know that Gary Coleman was divorced in 2008 from his wife, Shannon Price.  It was on an episode of Divorce Court after all!  The problem is that Price claims that she's entitled to inherit all of Coleman's assets based on a 2007 handwritten will and as his "common-law wife."  Now it looks like the estate will be tied up in a long and nasty fight.  If Gary Coleman had an estate planning attorney draft a clear will after his divorce, the impending legal battle may have been avoided.

The Chairman of Revlon, Ron Perelman (who is one of the richest men in the world), recently lost a very heated and ugly probate lawsuit (or more specifically, several different lawsuits), in which he sued on behalf of his ex-wife's estate.  Claudia Cohen had named Perelman as her executor shortly before she died in 2007. 

So who did Perelman sue?  None other that the father of his ex, Robert Cohen, who was infirm, partially paralyzed and in his eighties at the time.  The Probate Lawyer Blog's article discussing the case has all the details.

We found the case, and Perelman's efforts in particular, especially troubling.  And we certainly aren't the only ones.

In fact, the New Jersey judge who presided over the case recently ruled that Perelman's lawyers are to be sanctioned because some of the claims they filed were frivolous.  He specifically took issue with their claims Cohen should not be permitted to change his estate plan because he had allegedly "promised" his daughter (who later died) an equal share of his estate.

CNN's Fortune Magazine recently had a fascinating article about Ron Perelman's efforts to drag his paralyzed, infirm, and elderly ex-father-in-law through one of the most vicious estate battles we've seen in a while.

Perelman built most of his billion-dollar fortune through a hostile takeover of Revlon.  In the process, he married and divorced four women, one of whom was Claudia Cohen (actress Ellen Barkin was another).  Cohen came from a wealthy family herself.  Her father and brother own and control Hudson Media, a powerful magazine company that is a long-time partner of Time, Inc. 

Sadly, Claudia died after a difficult fight with cancer in 2007.  Her will appointed Perelman as her executor.  She named Samantha Perelman, her teenage daughter from their marriage, as her primary beneficiary.

Claudia's will made her wishes very clear, including her strong desire to protect the relationship between Samantha and Claudia's father, Robert, and brother, James.