The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1941-08-13
Continued from Page one)


plause was genuine, not the rare ap
plause of ridicule-
The Dean of the Law School of the
University of Missoula, c. w. Leap
hart, then read a discourse TRUSTS
in Lieu of Wills" Many present had
read almost the same article over the
deans signature in the Montana Law
Review only a month previous Per-
sons out of the profession cannot I'M
derstand the merit of repeating this
article to the same readers in such
short order The Courts probate wills.
If one dies without will, some close
relative is appointed administrator
and handles and distributes the estate
under orders of the courts. A trust
in lieu of will is favored device
of bankers 1t enables banks to con-
troll everything after a man dies to
the exclusion Of his widow and chill
dren and without getting orders of
court. Even when acting under orders
of court, bankers often have queer
methods of handling estates. In an
estate in Beaverhead county,
rancher died in 1919, leaving 100000
in land and cattle and life insurance.
A banker was appointed his executor.
None of his children have gotten any
thing out of the estate yet, but litiga-
ton has been going on for 10 years
to try to get some of it. This litiga-
ton is annoying. If the rancher had
made a trust instead of a will, under
the deans plan, there never would
have been any inventory filed in
court, no accounts would have been
filed, the whole thing could have been
handled in secret without the widow
or children knowing what had been
trusted away from them. CAT no
order of business in any meeting of
member break in to discuss how the
cashier of the First National Bank of
Dillon administered the estate of Will
liam Montgomery, deceased.)
The deans address was symptomat-
ic of the methods of tuition in the
Montana State Law School, The fac
ulty there do not realize that in every
lawsuit there is plaintiff as well as
a defendant, or that the young grad
uate starting out alone must make his
first good fee by representing sue
cessfully some injured person. The
trend there is to teach young men
Cor women) how to manipulate tech |
nical defenses to hinder, delay, OBJ
struct or defeat plaintiffs from gain
ing judgments enforcing their just |
rights. These young folks are trained |
mostly for clerks in the legal depart
ments of the mining, insurance, rail
road, banking and chain store COM
panies of the state. That is the ideal
professional life held before them in
their college days. In fact, to repre-
sent widows or children or cripples
in contest with corporations is
thought in that school to be rather a
lower order of professional work than
defending the corporations of Mon
tana against the just claims of ordi-
nary folks. If the Law Faculty were
teaching these young folks to run
instead of lawsuits, the
ouJIc CuiIlCululu Woulu NC uOW "
set the brakes, and get nowhere in
perfect safety.
This tone of the Law School usually
ruins these young graduates for life
1t makes them seek employment by
the corporations. Only about one in
ten who enters the legal messenger
service of the interests ever get to
be anywhere near chief counsel. Us
ually that job goes to one whom the
fear as an independent
tighter or who has political power.
| know one able lawyer who entered
he service of large legal depart