Importance of Having a Will and Trust

0:00About two segments ago, we were talking with John Gizzy regarding Christi Nome and her fate. And John Gizzy, the senior political reporter and senior White House reporter actually prognosticated that Christi Nome will be fired by President Trump within the year. He news President Trump just fired DHS Secretary Christi Nome, and he is planning on replacing her with Oklahoma Senator Mark Wayne Mullins. So you've heard it here first, breaking news that DHS Secretary, Department of Homeland Security, Secretary Christi Nome, who took a lot of heat on Capitol Hill over the last few days during her hearing from both Democrats and Republicans is now on her way out as been officially fired and being replaced with Oklahoma Senator Mark Wayne Mullins, who

1:00will be taking the, who will be nominated by the president. So boy, interesting way to start a segment, a Mark Mike, do you, do you almost call me Mike Wayne Mullins? Yes. I just almost did. It's one of those things that you were kind of expecting, but you looked up at, you looked up at the, the break news had her and you, you, you had to do a double take. Yep. But listen, we've got to get to our next guest because time is of the essence and our next guest, you've probably heard that line that there are two things that you can escape. You can't escape once you're being born, once you're born and it's death and taxes. Well, I'd also say probate court. So we're really glad to be joined with our next guest. And it's none other than Jessica Hallmark and experienced attorney and a candidate for Oakland County probate court with stories in the news every day right now about probate and a state law and discussions about how to navigate wills and trusts. There are some of the most important and most personal legal decisions people can make.

2:02So we thought we'd reach out to Jessica Hallmark, who's here to help us understand these a little bit better that will help us protect our families for the future. Jessica, welcome to the program. Hi, thanks so much for having me. It's great to have you on and I apologize for the breaking news. I couldn't stop that. But let's get into the, the important questions. What is probate court? And why is it so important to everyone here that basically is here in the state of Michigan? Yeah, so probate court deals with a lot of different issues that are really important to families. It makes a lot of decisions about wills and trusts of people who pass away or people who pass away and don't have a will or a trust. It also makes decisions about cares for a lot of different vulnerable populations in our community. They include minor children, people with disabilities and people with mental health issues. So when people think about our courts often they think about criminal matters or multi-million dollar lawsuits and obviously those are very important cases.

3:03But those cases are less likely to affect the average person. You know, hopefully most of us are now out there committing crimes or being accused of crimes or we're not parties to multi-million dollar lawsuits. But unfortunately, as you said, all of us are going to pass away one day and all of us are part of a family, you know, some kind of a family and we're connected to other people in some way. And you know, we might need care one day. We might be close to someone who will need care one day. And those are the things that bring people to probate court. Well, you mentioned, Jessica Hallmark's on with us. You mentioned wills and trusts. Which one should people have and why? So it's always good for people to think about what they want and to make a plan. So most of us don't like the idea of some stranger making major life decisions for us. So and most of us have strong opinions about what kind of care will receive if we get sick or if we become disabled or what will happen to our assets when we die. So making an estate plan is an important step.

4:03Generally, if someone has a will, the will will be administered by the probate court. So if they pass away and they have a will, their errors will have to come to the probate court and have the will probated. If they have a trust, generally, the trust can be administered without going to probate court. So some people view that as a benefit of having a trust versus a will. That makes it really understandable, boy, I'm glad we asked that question. I got to ask another one because we are seeing so many of these commercials online, as well as on TV everywhere, you know, talking about get your will here, get your trust here with all these AI platforms and online resources. Do people really need to hire a lawyer to prepare a will or trust anymore? Well, I'll admit to some bias in answering that question being a lawyer myself, but I will say probate court or probate law is a complicated area of law and it's also a state

5:04specific area of law. So if a layperson is just googling on the internet and they find a form and they use it, they might not know that they're using the wrong form or they might not understand that that form was intended to be used in a different state where there might be different laws or different procedures. So it's always best to consult an attorney increasingly though, AI is something that's part of our lives and many attorneys are starting to find ways to incorporate AI into their practice. So ideally what that means is that it's a tool they use to help them work more effectively and more efficiently and usually for lawyers that means more inexpensively, but they shouldn't be using AI as a tool to replace their own judgment and their own expertise. I know I have a lot of teachers in my life and I've heard them complain about their students using AI to do their work for them and they'll tell me often they can tell when a student has done that.

6:05Judges often can tell as well and there have been lots of stories of lawyers who have gotten themselves into trouble that way trying to pass off AI's work as their own work product. Yeah, that's a very good point I guess and Jessica, we've got to run because of the breaking news, but how do people get in touch with you? I know that you're running for Oakland County Proveic Court. How do people get in touch with you if they have more other questions? Yeah, so they can always reach me through my law firm at 248-540-7400, that's Add Kiss and Need Allen and Renn Trap. They can also reach me through my campaign website, which is hallmarkforjudge.com. Thank you very much, Jessica Hallmark, also a candidate for Oakland County Proveic talking about the importance of being prepared legally. So at the beginning of the segment, we broke in with breaking news, the breaking news again is that President Trump has fired Kristi Nome as the Secretary of Department of Homeland

7:08Security and now the president is saying we are calling on Virginia Governor Abigail Spanzberg and Virginia's sanctuary politicians to commit to not releasing this murderer. They were talking about a murder, releasing a murderer in Virginia and I guess Department of Homeland Security was participating in that. President Trump is going to appoint Senator Mark Wayne Mullen from Oklahoma. He serves with James Langford and proceeded by someone that I knew very dearly and that was Senator Jim Inhoff, a great man. So hopefully we will see a change in DHS and the direction of Department of Homeland Security. This has been a great two hours, I really enjoyed it. Thank you Danielle, thank you Mike, thank you WGR for allowing me to sit in that great chair that Paul Debby Smith occupies during the focus show. Great to be on with you and stay tuned for Ryan Armani, the best and smileiest and happiest

8:11next two hours here on WGR. Have a great day.