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The Retirement Fiduciary Podcast

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How to Make Sure Your Estate Plan Doesn鈥檛 Fail: Real Cases, Real Consequences with Kelly Lise Murray

May 5, 2026

Most families spend years building wealth. Far fewer spend time making sure the legal structures protecting that wealth are actually doing their job. In this episode, Adam Ko贸s,sits down with Professor Kelly Lise Murray, a lawyer, mediator, and legal scholar who spent nearly two decades at Vanderbilt University before turning her focus to wealth dispute resolution. Kelly hosts the Wealth Litigated podcast, where she breaks down real courtroom cases involving trusts, estates, and family wealth disputes.

Together, Adam and Kelly walk through real litigated cases involving blended families, irrevocable trusts, prenuptial agreements, and costly filing errors. The goal is simple: learn from other families' expensive mistakes so yours never has to become a case study.

Episode Timestamps

00:00 - Intro & guest background: Who is Kelly Lise Murray and what is the Wealth Litigated podcast

02:00 - Why estate planning disputes happen: The coordination problem between legal and financial documents

04:30 - Blended family estate planning: What the Marinakis v. Marinakis (Ohio) case teaches us

10:00 - California case: When a stepchild was allowed to inherit as a natural child

13:00 - The #1 most procrastinated item in financial planning (Adam's 25-year observation)

14:00 - Trusts and your mortgage: The Garn-St. Germaine Act and what advisors rarely tell clients

16:00 - Property & casualty insurance and irrevocable trusts: A 2007 warning still being ignored

17:30 - Collins v. Flannery (Ohio): What happens when a surviving spouse controls an irrevocable trust

22:00 - Trustee abuse of a special needs trust: A Texas case with a co-trustee resolution

24:00 - Structural protections: Co-trustees, trust protectors, and professional fiduciaries

26:00 - The $800,000 missed checkbox: Estate of Griffin v. Commissioner (IRS Q-TIP case)

29:00 - Prenuptial agreements: What an Ohio case reveals about overreaching and enforceability

32:00 - Portability of estate plans across state lines

33:00 - Incapacity planning: What to do when a divorcing spouse still has your healthcare directive

35:00 - Final advice for families and financial advisors: Where to start this week

Key Takeaways

馃挕 The single biggest driver of wealth disputes is a lack of coordination between legal documents, financial accounts, and estate plans. A will, a trust, and a beneficiary designation that conflict with one another will be decided by the court, not by you.

馃挕 Blended families face amplified risk. Remarrying without updating your estate plan can give a new spouse statutory rights that override your existing will, and may even leave your ex-in-laws as heirs.

馃挕 Transferring your home into a trust without checking your mortgage terms, insurance policy, and applicable statutes first can trigger your loan being called due immediately and invalidate your homeowner's insurance claim.

馃挕 Execution errors can be just as damaging as planning errors. A missed checkbox on an estate tax return cost one family over $800,000 in a federal IRS case. Two sets of eyes on every filing is a structural safeguard, not a formality.

馃挕 Structural protections like co-trustees, professional fiduciaries, and trust protectors exist specifically to prevent a sole trustee from depleting an estate without accountability. These are worth building in from the beginning.

馃挕 If you move to a different state, your existing estate plan, trust, and prenuptial agreement may no longer work as intended. Every lifecycle change and every geographic move warrants a legal review.

Key Quotes

馃棧 "The lack of coordination leads to litigation. That is the biggest takeaway of our discussion today." - Kelly Lise Murray

馃棧 "It's not a matter of if, it's when you get involved in some sort of litigation." - Kelly Lise Murray (citing a common refrain among estate attorneys)

馃棧 "The number one most procrastinated financial planning item is estate planning. Without a doubt." - Adam Koos, CFP庐, CMT, CFTe, CEPA

馃棧 "This is not estate planning in a box. You need actually licensed legal advice from a lawyer in your state." - Kelly Lise Murray

馃棧 "I've been talking about this since 2007 because we still haven't gotten the word out enough." - Kelly Lise Murray (on trust and insurance coordination)

Connect with the Guest

Guest: Kelly Lise Murray, JD - Lawyer, Mediator & Legal Scholar

Connect with Libertas Wealth

Connect with Adam Ko贸s