• videocam Live Webinar with Live Q&A
  • calendar_month August 11, 2026 @ 1:00 PM ET/10:00 AM PT
  • signal_cellular_alt Intermediate
  • card_travel Estate Planning
  • schedule 90 minutes

Anticipating Beneficiary Challenges in Estate Plans and Administration

About the Course

Introduction

This CLE course will guide estates counsel on navigating beneficiary challenges to trusts and estate administration. The panel will discuss legal framework and key considerations for beneficiary challenges, risk factors in identifying problematic beneficiaries, as well as trust provisions, and will outline specific steps and practices to protect the trust drafter, trustee, and trust protector or adviser from challenges.

Description

Fiduciary litigation involving trusts and estates continues to rise, with estate planners and fiduciary advisers facing increased risk of challenges to estate plans. A critical task for estate planning counsel is structuring an estate plan to follow the intent of the grantor while also protecting beneficiaries, trustees, and the professional preparing the instrument.

Planning professionals must recognize client situations that contain heightened risk for beneficiary litigation to challenge an estate plan. Where a will or trust document provides for disinheritance, disproportionate distribution, or liquidity, the risk of challenge increases. Counsel should practice a degree of defensive planning to head off common beneficiary challenges.

Estate planners can minimize damage from a challenge by carefully documenting the stages of the estate plan, from the intake and initial meeting through any communication with the client or interested parties. Counsel should also consider additional defensive strategies in drafting estate documents and at the execution of the will or trust to minimize the risk of beneficiary challenges.

Listen as our experienced panel provides a practical guide to using defensive estate planning strategies to minimize the risk and impact of beneficiary challenges.

Presented By

Matthew A. Bourque
Managing Partner
RMO, LLP

Mr. Bourque serves as Managing Attorney of RMO LLP’s Dallas and Houston offices. He focuses his practice on representing heirs, beneficiaries, fiduciaries, creditors, and other interested parties in contested probate, trust, guardianship, and financial elder abuse cases. Mr. Bourque primarily handles probate litigation matters including will contests, fiduciary litigation to recover misfunded, misapplied or misappropriated estate and trust funds, community property claims, executor and trustee removal proceedings, compelled distribution of estate and trust assets, trust accounting lawsuits, competing applications for guardianship, and establishment of common-law marriage and adoption-by-estoppel. He also has significant experience handling commercial litigation incidental to probate matters.

David Fowler Johnson
Shareholder; Chair, Business Litigation Practice Group; Co-Chair, Fiduciary Litigation
Winstead PC

Mr. Johnson is widely recognized as one of the go-to fiduciary litigators in Texas. His practice focuses on trust, estate, and closely-held business disputes. A frequent writer and speaker, David is known around the state as a thought leader in the fiduciary area. Mr. Johnson’s experience in trust and estate disputes includes will contests, elder abuse, mental competency, undue influence, trust modification/reformation/clarification, breach of fiduciary duty and related claims. Additionally, he has a transactional practice for trust departments in providing legal opinions on the construction of trust documents, documenting release and consent agreements, resignations, successor appointments, modification of trusts, trust mergers, trust severances, etc.

Scott E. Rahn
Founding Partner
RMO, LLP

Mr. Rahn represents heirs, beneficiaries, trustees and executors. He utilizes his experience to develop and implement strategies that swiftly and cost-effectively address the financial issues, fiduciary duties and emotional complexities underlying trust contests, estates conflicts and probate litigation.

Credit Information
  • This 90-minute webinar is eligible in most states for 1.5 CLE credits.


  • Live Online


    On Demand

Date + Time

  • event

    Tuesday, August 11, 2026

  • schedule

    1:00 PM ET/10:00 AM PT

I. Identifying risk areas of increased possibility of a beneficiary challenge

II. Potential grounds for beneficiary challenge

III. Engagement documentation

A. Identify possible undue influence scenarios

B. Using work papers to document the stages of the estate plan

C. Using video recording to memorialize the execution of the instrument and substantiate testator intent

IV. Drafting provisions to protect against challenges

V. Steps to take at the execution of documents

VI. Other strategies

The panel will review these and other key issues:

  • Documentation and work papers to maintain in case of a challenge
  • Identifying client scenarios and estate plan provisions/client intent that present increased risk of beneficiary challenge
  • Benefits, risks, and limits of using certain clauses in wills and trusts to head off potential beneficiary litigation
  • Extra steps to establish testamentary capacity in potentially high-risk plans