Richard F Storrow, ‘Legacies of a Pandemic: Remote Attestation and Electronic Wills’, 48 Mitchell Hamline Law Review 826 (2022). The modernization of probate codes has been a slow and fraught proposition. States have long set different requirements for formalizing wills. To this day there are still states that require strict compliance with all formalities, including that a will be in writing, that it be signed, and that it also be signed by two witnesses. The COVID-19 pandemic forced legislators into an uncomfortable and reluctant embrace of the twenty-first century. In his recent article, Professor Richard F Sorrow tracks the unprecedented if clumsy implementation of two controversial reforms of traditional wills: remote attestation and electronic wills. For centuries, in both England and the United States, the steps required to execute a will had to be followed precisely … (more)
[Goldburn Maynard, JOTWELL, 9 November 2023]
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