Chairs’ Welcome and Introductory Remarks

Barry S. Corbin, Corbin Estates Law Professional Corporation
Suzana Popovic-Montag, Hull & Hull LLP

Powers and Duties of POAs and Estate Trustees:

Resolving Vexing Issues

Melanie A. Yach, Aird & Berlis LLP
Clare E. Burns, WeirFoulds LLP

• Scope of the attorney’s investment authority and ability to delegate the same
  
• When and how to remove/replace an attorney
  
• ‘Springing’ vs. ‘immediately effective’ POAs
  
• Single vs. multiple attorneys
  
• Broad vs. specific powers and restrictions
  
• The risk of inadvertent revocation where multiple powers of attorney are used
  
• Powers of Attorney for Personal Care: how to compensate the attorney?
  
• Scope of the estate trustee’s investment authority and ability to delegate the exercise of the same
  
• Scope of the estate trustee’s duty to locate beneficiaries and next-of-kin
  
• Will ‘rectification’ and the scope of the estate trustee’s power to deviate from the deceased’s wishes
  
• Will ‘rectified’ by deletion of clause even where will not probated

Key Corporate, Tax and Insurance Issues

Rosanne T. Rocchi, Miller Thomson LLP

• Trusts and estates that control corporations: addressing the problem of divided loyalty/conflict between looking after the corporation’s interests and fiduciary obligations to benefi ciaries of the trust
  
• Post-mortem tax planning: purpose and scope of available elections
• Taking steps to enable the future transmission on death of private company shares without probate
  
• Drafting the qualifying spousal testamentary trust
  
• Significance of tax status as testamentary trust and how estate can lose such status
  
• Who owns the insurance contract? (individual, two or more parties jointly, corporation, etc.)
  - impact of the answer on family law/ dependent’s support

  claims and U.S. estate tax
- transfer of ownership without triggering tax

  consequences

Mastering Capacity Issues and Guardianship

of Incapable Persons

Arthur I. Fish, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP
Carole A. Cohen, MD, Clinical Director, Community Psychiatric

Services for the Elderly, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre & Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto

• Understanding the threshold for legal capacity and applying it to real-life situations
  
• The substitute decision-maker’s right to make ‘testamentary’ decisions
  
• Pitfalls and solutions in relation to undertaking mental capacity assessments
  
• Input from the hospital or long-term care facility re: capacity
  
• Effective representation of the incapable person
  
• Protecting vulnerable adults: options and remedies
  
• Identifying and addressing practical concerns in guardianship
  
• Planning considerations re: incapable persons nearing the age of majority

Issues Involving Family Law and Children

Judith M. Nicoll, McInnis & Nicoll
Debra L. Stephens, Office of the Children’s Lawyer

• Revisiting questions of definition – spouses and parents under estates and family law
  
• Tips and traps in estate matters — The Children’s Lawyer’s experience and views
• Dependents’ support claims on behalf of spouses and minor children
  
• Problems raised by the use of estate freezes
  
• How trusts are to be valued for equalization purposes
  
• Piercing the corporate veil and asset valuation
  
• Investments on behalf of children (RESPs, etc.)
  
• The impact of domestic contracts in the estates context

Structuring and Drafting the Trickiest Will Clauses [Part I]

Jordan M. Atin, Atin Professional Corporation
Mary Anne Bueschkens, Heenan Blaikie LLP
Corina S. Weigl, Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP
Anne M. Werker, Smith & Werker

Clauses such as the following will be explored, with precedents:

• Asset protection trusts
  
• Clauses to permit various rollovers of RRSPs for children
  
• Discretionary trusts
  
• Double legacies
  
• Dynasty trusts
  
• Equalizing legacies
  
• Hotchpot clauses
  
• Insurance clauses
  
• International trusts
  
• Multiple wills
  
• ‘No contest’ clauses
  
• Overriding powers of the trustee
  
• Personal effects clauses
  
• Separation agreements
  
• Spousal trusts
  
• Testamentary trusts
  
• Trusts where the beneficiary is a minor, under a physical or mental disability, or imprudent/ irresponsible

Cross-Border Interests and Interprovincial/ International Wills

Margaret R. O’Sullivan, O’Sullivan Estate Lawyers

Professional Corporation
Martin J. Rochwerg, Miller Thomson LLP

• Checklist of current non-residency issues and considerations in estate planning and administration: beneficiaries, property, trustees
  
• Understanding conflicts of law as between Canada, the U.S. and other countries

Essentials of Mediation and Arbitration for Estate Solicitors

Sender B. Tator & Felice C. Kirsh, Schnurr Kirsh
Schnurr Oelbaum Tator LLP

• Which kinds of estate disputes are most amenable to mediation (formal or informal) or arbitration?
  
• Under what conditions are formal dispute resolution mechanisms most likely to succeed?
  
• The estate solicitor as informal mediator in disputes between trustees
  
• Is it ever too early to intervene and mediate?
  
• Identifying ‘the conflict beneath the conflict’ – what’s most important to all parties?
  
• Selecting the mediator or arbitrator
  
• Preparing the client and managing expectations
  
• Addressing crises, breaking impasses
  
• Reaching and documenting settlement and crafting releases

Effective Risk Management for Estate Solicitors

Archie J. Rabinowitz, Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP

• Confidentiality and privilege in estates practice
  
• The most useful retainer letters
  
• Ensuring the absence of ‘suspicious circumstances’ or other potential causes of challenge to the will
  
• Fee-related issues
  
• Client identification and verification (anti-fraud) requirements and best practices
  
• Is risk management different during a recession?
  
• Limitations applicable to actions in negligence against estate solicitors
  
• The solicitor providing services and support to the estate trustee: relevant duty of care
  
• Risks where the solicitor assumes the executor’s duties de facto
  
• Liability for late filings with the Canada Revenue Agency
  
• Solicitor’s duty in relation to client’s testamentary capacity

Be Aware! Issues That Will Affect Your Estates Practice

Howard S. Black, Minden Gross LLP
Howard M. Carr, Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP
Sheila M. Crummey, McMillan LLP
Alessandra P. Goulet, Jan Goddard and Associates
M. Jasmine Sweatman, Sweatman Law Firm
Barry S. Corbin, Corbin Estates Law Professional
Corporation [moderator]

• Succession and inheritance outside the will
  - treatment of registered plans (RRSPs, RIFFs, TFSAs, RESPs,

  etc.)
- jointly held property
- beneficiary designations
- partial intestacies

• ‘Hidden in plain sight’; easily-overlooked sections of the Succession Law Reform Act and other statutory and common-law sources that you need to keep in mind
• Mutual (‘mirroring’) wills: problems to which they give rise, and how to avoid them – creating enforceable contractual structures
  
• Drafting in light of developments in reproductive technology
  
• Dealing with the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) office
  
• Loyalty points (Aeroplan, etc.) and other ‘odd’ forms of property as estate assets