When two sisters engage in a battle over control of their mother’s estate, it can only get uglier when one trustee sisterattempts to have her husband’s law firm appointed as successor trustee. But it helps with the Court if said firm isn’t brazenly overbilling the estate in the process:

“Greenberg Traurig billed the estate almost $130,000, which is now at issue in a pending contempt motion. Sankel claims the amount should be repaid to the trust since Greenberg Traurig’s services were retained for the personal benefit of Linda Spector and Jacobs, whom she eventually married.

In the contempt motion, Sankel also noted the disparity between the fees paid to Greenberg Traurig and his own firm in the course of the dispute. He noted that his firm had billed the trust $22,000 in the same time period. He is requesting invoices from Greenberg Traurig to back up charges, some of which he claims were “wholly frivolous.”

(Law.com, August 8)