The Stanley Mosk Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles, home of the county’s probate departments.

Will & trust contests · Los Angeles County

Will and trust contests in Los Angeles County

The Stanley Mosk Courthouse downtown, home of the county’s probate departments. Photo: Carol M. Highsmith, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

When a will or trust doesn’t sound like the parent you knew, the fight is heard in the county’s probate court. John J. Donahue litigates those cases there, often on contingency for qualifying cases.

What families call it

Families come to John with many names for the same fight. Here is what each one usually means:

Will contest: asking the court to set aside a will, or part of one.
Trust contest: asking the court to set aside a trust or a late amendment to it.
Trust, probate or estate litigation: the umbrella names for any court fight over a trust or an estate.
Undue influence: someone used a parent’s trust or dependence to steer the plan.
Lack of capacity: the parent couldn’t understand what they were signing.
Forgery or improper signing: the document isn’t what it claims to be.
Breach of fiduciary duty: a trustee or executor isn’t doing the job honestly or carefully.
Petition to compel an accounting: asking the court to make a trustee show the numbers.
Removing a trustee or executor: replacing the person in charge.
Elder financial abuse: money taken from a parent while they were alive.
Beneficiary dispute: who is entitled to what, including changed insurance and account beneficiaries.
Disinheritance: being left out, which is a legal claim only when the document itself is flawed.
No-contest clause: a line threatening to cut out anyone who challenges the plan.

Where the case is heard

A contest over a Los Angeles County estate or trust is a petition in the Superior Court’s Probate Division, usually in the departments at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse. Most cases move through written papers, mediation and short hearings. When a case needs a longer trial, the court can send it to a separate trial department; in late 2025 it moved its long probate trials from Long Beach and Beverly Hills to Department 64 at the Metropolitan Courthouse.

Mediation is a normal stop along the way, and many contests settle there. John prepares every case as if it will be tried, because that is what moves the other side at the table.

From the calls John gets

The Westside condo

A daughter in Pasadena learns that her father’s condo near Westwood went to his neighbor of six years, by a trust amendment signed in the hospital. The neighbor’s lawyer mailed the trustee’s notice in March.

What John looks at: The hospital chart for that week, who called the lawyer, and the 120 days that started with that March notice. Facts like these decide whether there is probable cause to file at all.

Illustration. Details changed; not a real client. Read a story like this →

The deadlines that matter most

Trust contests: generally 120 days from the trustee’s notice, or 60 days after a requested copy of the trust is delivered, if that is later.
Will contests: generally 120 days after the will is admitted to probate, and objecting before it is admitted is often stronger.
Claims about money taken while a parent was alive: often longer, but the clock usually starts when the family learns of it.

If any notice has arrived, the date on it is the first thing John will ask for.

Contingency, when it fits

For qualifying contest cases John works on contingency, so the family isn’t paying by the hour against someone who controls the money. How contingency works →

Before anything is filed

Strong cases are often won or lost in the first few weeks, before anything is filed. The useful work is quiet: getting a copy of every version of the will or trust, writing down dates while memories are fresh, requesting medical and bank records the right way, and not tipping off anyone who might shred, sell or move something.

Every version of the documents you have or have seen.
Any notice from a trustee or the court, with its envelope.
A timeline of your parent’s health, moves and visitors in the last few years.
The names of doctors, caregivers, the lawyer who drafted the change, and anyone who was in the room.

John reads it all before the first real conversation, so that conversation is about your case.

In families’ own words

What Los Angeles County families ask about contests

How much does a contest cost?

It depends on the case and how far it goes, and a fight that reaches trial can be expensive. That is why John looks first at whether a case qualifies for contingency, and tells you plainly if it doesn’t.

Do we have to live in Los Angeles to contest?

No. What matters is where the parent lived and where the estate or trust is administered.

Can we get the medical records?

Usually, yes, through the court case. Records from the months around a signing are often the most important evidence there is.

Will this go to trial?

Most contests don’t. Many settle at mediation. The ones that are tried are usually the ones where the facts are strong and the other side won’t face them.