Dead Hands: A Social History of Wills, Trusts, and Inheritance Law

by Lawrence M. Friedman

The law of succession rests on a single brute fact: you can't take it with you. The stock of wealth that turns over as people die is staggeringly large. In the United States alone, some $41 trillion will pass from the dead to the living in the first half of the 21st century. But the social impact of inheritance is more than a matter of money; it is also a matter of what money buys and brings about.Law and custom allow people many ways to pass on their property. As Friedman's enlightening social history reveals, a decline in formal rules, the ascendancy of will substitutes over classic wills, social changes like the rise of the family of affection, changing ideas of acceptable heirs, and the potential disappearance of the estate tax all play a large role in the balance of wealth. Dead Hands uncovers the tremendous social and legal importance of this rite of passage, and how it reflects changing values and priorities in American families and society.

Genres: Law

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Professor of law.

Also author of mystery novels, The Frank May Chronicles.

Reviews

[Edwyn Choi · Rating 5 out of 5]

So the crazy thing about this book is that Friedman's trying to give a unified history of Wills, Trusts, and Inheritance law despite the fact that this is really a state-by-state thing and can't be neatly analyzed/summarized in the way federal statutes can be (barring, say, the GST). This is to say that the very existence of this book (which seems to be the first of its kind) is somewhat crazy. But at the same time because it's state-by-state you get the sense that you're only getting a very watered down history, since Friedman isn't going to go state-by-state in a book that is meant to give you a general understanding of legal concepts; that might be frustrating or annoying for some, especially if you live in a state that maybe hasn't given as much attention to its estate/RAP statutes as, say, California or Wyoming.

If you're interested in this field as a whole, however, I would start here irrespective of all that I said. Some of the other T&E books I've read get really technical really quickly, but Friedman takes his time explaining things in easy ways, especaily things like RAP (I should've read this BEFORE Public Policy and the Dead Hand). Only thing to be wary of is that there's not a lot of legal theory or arguments here --- questions like "so why did RAP choose 21 years" are answered, bascially, with a little sociological/legal/economic theory and because "the courts said so," whereas a more technical book might've given you a more satisfying answer. The goal of this book, really, is just the history/development of this field of law, even if its state jurisdiction(s) makes things incredibly difficult to neatly organize.

[Barron · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very good volume! This study passes the Rule Against Perpetuities Test--which specifies that no book is really worth reading unless it addresses the Rule Against Perpetuities using sufficient ardor--with flying colors.

[Anson Cassel Mills · Rating 4 out of 5]

Several times while I was reading this book, friends intrigued by the title asked me what it was about. “Yes,” I said, “it sounds like a novel, and it actually reads that well too.” Lawrence M. Friedman, the prolific popularizer of American legal history, has in Dead Hands written a fine, short book that should prove accessible to anyone curious about succession law. From a policy standpoint, the most important chapters are probably those dealing with the fall of the rule against perpetuities and the rise of charitable foundations. But Friedman is a great storyteller, and there are some great stories to tell about the wackiness that occasionally ensues when people try to make or break wills, or worse, try to ignore planning for their deaths altogether.

[Nicholas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Doesn't it sound thrilling? Oddly enough, it was totally fascinating. I was working on an article and needed to figure out just a little information on estate taxation and about what I discovered is called "freedom of testation" (the ability to choose who you leave your stuff to; it's not necessarily unlimited, btw). I trekked to a law library for this book, which is pretty new and thus not available all over the place, had it specially paged, and then started reading. I couldn't put it down. From explanations of the laws of intestacy, wills, and how one can contest them, to the changes in all of these things over the last 400 years, Friedman writes in a very lively way, making what could be very dry legalese come alive. Not only is it a social history of people acting from beyond the grave -- dead hands -- and sometimes their relatives trying to contest those actions, it's also a really clear explanation of all of the legal instruments and procedures that are used in planning estates and trusts. I was hooked after the introduction and read it in one sitting.