Ian Edwards (Cape Cod Center for Sustainability) recently published Of This Trust: Fiduciary Prudence is Never Generic, 2026. Provided below is the Abstract:
Trust law does not exercise prudence in the abstract. It exercises prudence in relation to the trust under administration. The familiar phrase “of the trust” repeatedly directs fiduciary judgment toward the trust whose terms, purposes, beneficiaries, and circumstances give fiduciary obligations their legal meaning. General fiduciary principles establish standards of conduct. The trust identifies for whom, for what purpose, and under what circumstances those standards are deliberated. Institutional administration may rely upon standardized methods. The fiduciary question is whether those methods remain capable of justification by reference to this trust.
Trust law repeatedly directs fiduciary judgment back to the trust under administration: the terms of the trust, the purposes of the trust, the beneficiaries of the trust, the administration of the trust, and the circumstances affecting the trust. Because these references are familiar, they are easily overlooked as drafting convention. Together they reveal a common feature of fiduciary doctrine. Fiduciary judgment is never generic.