News

Cooley Law School Faculty Co-Author Book ‘Wills, Estates, and Trusts: Statutes, Cases, And Problems’

Written by Cooley Law School | Apr 11, 2025 4:00:00 PM

Cooley Law School faculty Michael Molitor, Dustin Foster, and Emily Horvath have co-authored the textbook, “Wills, Estates, and Trusts: Statutes, Cases, and Problems.”

The book, published by Carolina Academic Press in December 2024, comprehensively covers all important aspects of estate planning law, including non-probate assets; intestacy; family protections and the surviving spouse's elective share; wills (including a general chapter on wills, and additional chapters on events that occur after the will, such as after-married spouses and after-born children, challenges to wills, and revocation of wills); trusts; the federal gift and estate tax; and estate planning, including ethical issues.

“The textbook was a labor of love that took a few years,” said Molitor. “With the assistance of my colleagues, we were able to produce a textbook that is practical, contains many practice problems (including an online supplement with more than 250 practice multiple-choice questions and explanations), and will be a great teaching aid for any professor using the uniform codes to teach Wills, Estates, & Trusts.”

Each chapter features detailed learning objectives, as well as dozens of problems for in-class discussion that require law students to delve into and apply statutes and case law. The teacher's manual contains detailed explanations to each of these questions as well as other materials for professor use.

The textbook covers the Uniform Probate Code, the Uniform Trust Code, and other uniform statutes, but also includes a wealth of case law. The online Core Knowledge for Lawyers assessment sets contain many multiple-choice and essay questions with detailed explanations, that students can use to assess their mastery of the subject matter. 

“Wills, Estates, and Trusts: Statutes, Cases, and Problems” is available for purchase online at Carolina Academic Press and Amazon.