California will contestants should not talk to other parties in their case

When a will contest gets underway my clients always want to know whether they have to speak with their brother or sister who is on the other side of the case. The answer is no you don't. In California once the will contest starts you are a party to litigation and you're represented by an attorney. Because you're represented by an attorney you should not speak with any other party to the will contest.

Where things can get interesting is when your attorney needs to speak to another party in the will contest. If your brother or sister (or whoever it is that's on the other side of the will contest) is not represented by an attorney then you should expect your attorney is going to speak with that unrepresented party. On the other hand, if that person is represented by an attorney then your attorney is going to speak with the other party's attorney and not with them.

Unfortunately not everyone who engages in a will contest, or says they're going to engage in a will contest, is honest about whether they will represent themselves or hire an attorney. It is not unusual for someone who is faced with the time, expense and burden of being a party to a will contest to vacillate about whether or not they're going to hire an attorney. This can result in that person telling your attorney that they've hired their own attorney, when in fact, they have not. This then leads to the uncomfortable situation where the party seeks some information from your attorney and your attorney responds by telling the other party they can only speak to that party's attorney.

My firm had one unusual twist on this recently when one of the opposing parties to a will contest was himself a lawyer. My client's brother, the lawyer, who lived out of state, told me that he was hiring a local attorney to represent him in the will contest. He even gave me the name, address, and telephone number of the attorney he claimed he hired. A short time later my client's brother then requested a significant amount of information about the case from me. I explained that he was represented in the will contest by his lawyer so I could only speak with his lawyer. This resulted in a very heated response accompanied by some unfounded threats. No information was provided to my client's brother. Perhaps the best part of this whole experience was later learning my client's brother had never actually retained another attorney and as a result missed his deadline for filing his will contest.

The Grossman Law Firm, A.P.C. are Riverside, California probate lawyers.  We help probate estates in Riverside County, California.  We appear in the Riverside probate court for cases in the area bounded by Temecula, Corona, and Banning, California.  We appear in the Palm Springs/Indio probate court for cases from Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Rancho Mirage, Desert Hot Springs, Cathedral City, Indian Wells, and Indio, California.  If you  would like more information on probate and trust administration then order our free book The Insider's Guide to California Probate and Trust Administration as well as our free DVD Probate a Will or Administer a Trust After the Death of a Loved One.