The law of estates and trusts, gratuitous transfers, wills, and probate is a combination of state common law and statute, dating back for hundreds of years. Interacting with this law are state and federal tax laws, regulations, and other agency materials.
As a practitioner, you may have access to Westlaw, Lexis and/or Bloomberg Law. If you are a member of the Florida Bar, access to Florida statutes, regulations and case law through Fastcase will be part of your membership. However, you should also become familiar with free primary law resources, such as the Office of the Law Revision Counsel's U.S. Code pages, IRS.gov, and regulations.gov.
The U.S. Government Printing Office provides up-to-date .pdf copies of federal statutes, regulations, and other primary materials.
The Office of the Law Revision Counsel (OLRC) is responsible for codifying the public laws that have been enacted by Congress. Unlike the paper U.S. Code, which has a 2-3 year publication lag, the online version will be current or will indicate where pending changes will be made. The website also has historical versions of the US Code, which can be extremely important in the area of estates and trusts.
Regulations.gov will help you identify pending regulatory actions that may affect a client. You may also post comments on proposed rules and read comments posted by others, particularly the ABA and NY tax sections, and trade associations.
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