Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Massachusetts

Re: Trust documents

The best person to have answer this question is the attorney you work for. He or she will be able to decide if there is a conflict. Massachusetts attorneys can always call the Board of Bar Overseers to receive advice on conflict issues as well.

Knowing how I operate my own practice, I would be able to represent the interests of an employees' parents. In my legal counseling of the parents the employee would have no involvement in the meetings or prepration of the documents. As such, I would not view it as a conflict.

Re: Trust documents

Not necessarily, but ...

There are some potential concerns: one is the issue of confidentiality, which could be waived by your parents, if you will be privy to information on the estate planning or have access to the documents through your work. What if you don't like what is being suggested?

A related issue is whether any siblings or other interested beneficiaries might raise a challenge based upon the relationship between the attorney and you. While an actual conflict may not exist, there might be enough appearance of a conflict for the others to raise a challenge.

Having said all that, if the estate planning is pretty straight forward, and what would be expected in the absence of any family "issues", e.g. pro rata shares for children upon death of surviving spouse, or similar variations in the event of earlier distributions to children, and that distribution has been discussed with the beneficiaries and everyone is on the same page, it's probably not an issue.

Note, of course, that the attorney must keep confidential any information provided to him or her in the absence of express permission to disclose by your parents, and if the attorney had knowledge about special circumstances surrounding you that your parents might not be aware of, that might cause a conflict, inasmuch as he or she might have reasons to alter planning, but would be precluded from disclosing information from you without permission from you...