The below posting is as a courtesy to Prof. Carla Spivack.

This is a reminder to submit paper, panel and works in progress proposals for the Sixth Biennial Critical Trusts and Estates Conference to be held at Richmond Law School on October 9-10.

Founded in 2012 at Oklahoma City University School of Law, this conference gathers scholars and practitioners from around the world to explore the myriad ways succession law not only distributes wealth, but also constitutes social relations, identities, and hierarchies across generations. We construe “succession law” broadly to include related issues in property law, family law, and other related fields.

We welcome papers that interrogate the role of property transmission, inheritance law, and trusts and estates in shaping and sustaining structures of power, including but not limited to those organized around race, gender, sexuality, class, disability, immigration, and nation. We are particularly interested in work that explores how wealth transmission both reflects and produces economic and power relations and that draws on a range of critical traditions such as feminist legal theory, critical race theory, LatCrit, queer theory, disability studies, postcolonial theory, and related approaches.

Possible topics include (but are not limited to): the racialized and gendered dimensions of inheritance and family formation; the relationship between succession law and colonialism or global inequality; the role of trusts and estates in climate governance and intergenerational justice; and the ways private wealth structures interact with public law and democratic institutions. We also welcome papers addressing today’s trusts and estates “hot topics,” like the reformation of revocable trusts, the policy/history of testamentary freedom, and trust privacy/secrecy.

We welcome proposals from senior and junior faculty, practitioners, previous participants and new voices (including colleagues participating in the earlier August ACTEC workshop at George Mason Law School). Please indicate whether your proposal is intended for a panel or for the Works In Progress Session. The Works in Progress Session will pair senior commentators with junior scholars to discuss the projects they are developing.

Please submit proposals to atait@richmond.edu and cspiv@albanylaw.edu.

Photo of Gerry W. Beyer Gerry W. Beyer

Dr. Gerry W. Beyer joined the faculty of the Texas Tech University School of Law in June 2005 as the first holder of the Governor Preston E. Smith Regents Professorship. Previously, Prof. Beyer taught as a professor or visiting professor at several other…

Dr. Gerry W. Beyer joined the faculty of the Texas Tech University School of Law in June 2005 as the first holder of the Governor Preston E. Smith Regents Professorship. Previously, Prof. Beyer taught as a professor or visiting professor at several other law schools including Boston College, Boston University, The Ohio State University, Southern Methodist University, the University of New Mexico, Santa Clara University, St. Mary’s University, and La Trobe University in Australia.

Prof. Beyer is admitted to practice in Texas, Illinois (inactive), Ohio (inactive) and before the United States Supreme Court and the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces.

Prof. Beyer is the recipient of dozens of outstanding and distinguished faculty awards from three law schools including the Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award, the most prestigious university-wide teaching award at Texas Tech, the 2015 President’s Academic Achievement Award, and the Outstanding (Law) Researcher Award in 2013 and 2017.

As a state and nationally recognized expert in estate planning, Prof. Beyer is a highly sought after lecturer. He presents dozens of continuing legal education presentations each year for many national, state, and local bar associations, universities, and civic groups. In recognition of his expertise and contributions to the legal profession, the National Association of Estate Planners & Councils inducted him into the Estate Planning Hall of Fame in 2015. In 2022, Prof. Beyer was awarded the Distinguished Probate Attorney Lifetime Achievement Award by the Real Estate, Probate, and Trust Law Section of State Bar of Texas.

Prof. Beyer is the editor of the most popular estate planning blawg in the nation which after being named for five consecutive years to the ABA Journal’s Blawg 100 was awarded Hall of Fame status in 2015.

Prof. Beyer is the author of dozens of books and hundreds of articles focusing on various aspects of estate planning, including a two-volume treatise on Texas wills law, an estate planning law school casebook, and the Wills, Trusts, and Estates volume of the Examples & Explanations series. He has four times won awards from the American Bar Association’s Probate & Property magazine for his writing. He is one of the most often downloaded law authors on the Social Science Research Network with a ranking in the top .001%.  Prof. Beyer is the Editor-in-Chief of the REPTL Reporter, the official journal of the largest section of the State Bar of Texas, the Real Estate, Probate and Trust Law Section.

Prof. Beyer serves as a mentor to many students and various law school organizations as well participating regularly in pro bono activities. He is the advisor for the Estate Planning and Community Property Law Journal and its annual seminar, the Black Law Students Association, and the Estate and Property Law Society.

Prof. Beyer received his J.D. from the Ohio State University (summa cum laude) and his LL.M. and J.SD. degrees from the University of Illinois. He is a member of the Order of the Coif, an Academic Fellow and former Regent of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, a member of the American Law Institute, and was appointed by the Uniform Law Commission as the Reporter for the Uniform Electronic Estate Planning Documents Act and the Integration of Probate and Non-Probate Transfers Study Committee.