This curricular pathway provides a progression of courses offered at South Texas College of Law Houston that are relevant to estate planning law.
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Estate Planning Law Pathway
| Core courses | |
| Recommended courses | |
| Bar | Relevant bar examination topic |
Stage 1
Wills, Trusts & Estates
BarView detailsRelevant bar examination topic.
Three semester hours credit. Normally offered three times each academic year.
A study of the execution and revocation of wills, intestate succession, will contests and will substitutes; creation and administration of private express, charitable, resulting, implied and constructive trusts; duties, powers and responsibilities of trustees; and the basics of estate administration.
Federal Income Taxation
View detailsCrossover bar examination topic.
Three semester hours credit. Normally offered three times each academic year.
This is an introductory course in the fundamentals of federal income taxation designed to prepare students, as lawyers, to recognize and appreciate the impact of income tax consequences on transactions and events they encounter in the general practice of law, including family law, dispute settlement, real estate, investments of various types and small business counseling. Areas of coverage include the definition and characterization of income, exclusions from income, deductions, and the determination of gain or loss from property transactions. With an emphasis placed on the Internal Revenue Code and Treasury regulations, students are introduced to essential legal skills of learning to read and understand the language of statutes and regulations as well as judicial interpretations and administrative pronouncements.
Marital Property & Homestead
BarView detailsRelevant bar examination topic.
Three semester hours credit. Normally offered three times each academic year.
Texas community property system, property rights of husband and wife, rights of other parties, and homestead.
Property I
BarView detailsRelevant bar examination topic.
Three semester hours credit.
Overview of property law, including acquisition of rights in personal property, fixtures, estates in land and future interests, and landlord and tenant law.
Property II
BarView detailsRelevant bar examination topic.
Three semester hours credit.
Prerequisites: Property I.
Modes of transferring real estate, including contracts to transfer, problems affecting transfer, methods of title assurance, adverse possession, third-party interests in land, including easements, covenants and natural rights, and a brief introduction to deeds of trust and mortgages.
Stage 2
Consider earlier courses plus one or more from below
Administration of Estates & Guardianships
BarView detailsRelevant bar examination topic.
Two semester hours credit. Offered periodically.
Prerequisites: Wills, Trusts & Estates.
A skills-based, practice-focused study in the area of wills and estate administration including guardianship representation, basic estate planning, creditor claims, client development, fiduciary responsibility, and the role of the personal representative in decedents’ estates.
Estate & Gift Taxation
View detailsCrossover bar examination topic.
Three semester hours credit. Normally offered once each academic year.
Prerequisites: Federal Income Taxation; Wills, Trusts & Estates.
An in-depth examination and analysis of the Internal Revenue Code, regulations, rulings, and case law governing intervivos and testamentary gratuitous transfers, and the interrelationship among the federal gift, estate, and generation-skipping transfer tax statutes.
Estate Planning Clinic
View detailsTwo semester hours credit. Normally offered three times each academic year. Maximum of eight students.
Prerequisites: Students must have successfully completed a minimum of 45 semester hours and must have taken or be concurrently taking Wills, Trusts & Estates or a Probate Clinic.
This hands-on civil practice clinic targets skills development in client interviewing and counseling and transactional document drafting. These cases tend to be balanced between client counseling and intensive document drafting. There is some limited skill development in legal research, file documentation and maintenance, legal and case theory development, and professional development. The beginning of the course will teach students basic interviewing skills using classroom lecture components, simulations, a live-client file, and a supervised live-client interview in which students interview a client with modest estate planning needs. Subsequently and within the contextual setting of each client’s articulated needs and goals, students draft the appropriate array of seven potential estate planning documents.
Probate Clinic
View detailsThree semester hours credit. Normally offered twice each academic year. Maximum of eight students.
Prerequisites: Students must have successfully completed a minimum of 45 semester hours and Wills, Trusts & Estates; the Guardianship Clinic; or the Estate Planning Clinic.
This hands-on civil practice clinic develops skills in factual investigation, client interviewing and counseling, legal research, document drafting (transactional and/or court-related), file documentation and maintenance, legal and case theory development, and professional development. The beginning of the course teaches students critical factual investigation and interviewing skills using classroom lecture components, simulations, a live-client file, and a supervised live-client interview. Students conduct a supervised interview of a client seeking to transfer property from a testate or intestate decedent to potential beneficiaries taking into consideration estate assets, property characterization, estate liquidity, and debt. Subsequently and within the contextual setting of each client’s articulated needs and goals, students research the appropriate options consistent with the client’s goals, counsel the client in a supervised setting, and draft the appropriate transactional or court-related documents. If filing is anticipated, students prosecute the case in a Harris County probate court.
Guardianship Clinic
View detailsTwo semester hours credit. Normally offered twice each academic year. Maximum of eight students.
Prerequisites: Students must have successfully completed a minimum of 45 semester hours and must have taken or be concurrently taking Wills, Trusts & Estates; a Probate Clinic; or the Estate Planning Clinic.
This hands-on civil practice clinic develops skills predominantly in the areas of client interviewing and counseling and court-related document drafting. This clinic tends to be heavily transactional. There is some limited skill development in legal research, file documentation and maintenance, legal and case theory development, and professional development. The beginning of the course teaches students basic interviewing skills using classroom lecture components, simulations, a live-client file, and a supervised live-client interview. Students interview a client seeking guardianship of the person over a proposed ward under supervised conditions. Subsequently and within the contextual setting of each client’s articulated needs and goals, students draft the appropriate transactional and court-related documents in anticipation of filing and prosecuting the case in a Harris County probate court.
Family Law
BarView detailsRelevant bar examination topic.
Three semester hours credit. Normally offered three times each academic year.
Problems of the family, including marriage, termination of the marital status, the parent-child relationship, assisted reproduction and adoption.
Agency & Partnership
BarView detailsRelevant bar examination topic.
Three semester hours credit. Normally offered twice each academic year.
A study of the legal doctrines governing the formation, operation, and termination of agency relationships, partnerships, limited liability partnerships, limited partnerships, and limited liability companies, including the rights, duties, and obligations of owners and managers.
Corporations
BarView detailsRelevant bar examination topic.
Three semester hours credit. Normally offered three times each academic year.
A study of the legal doctrines governing the formation, operation, and termination of corporations, including the rights, duties, and obligations of shareholders, directors, and officers.
Taxation–Advanced Income
View detailsTwo semester hours credit. Normally offered once each academic year.
Prerequisites: Federal Income Taxation.
A study of advanced concepts and problems in income taxation.
Corporate Taxation
View detailsThree semester hours credit. Normally offered once each academic year.
Prerequisites: Federal Income Taxation.
Examination of the federal income taxation of business organizations that are classified as corporations for federal tax purposes and subject to subchapter C of the Internal Revenue Code. Topics include the federal tax classification of business organizations and the federal income tax treatment of corporate formations, operations, distributions, redemptions of stock, liquidations and reorganizations.
Partnership & Subchapter S Taxation
View detailsThree semester hours credit. Normally offered once each academic year.
Prerequisites: Federal Income Taxation.
Examination of the federal income taxation of business organizations that are classified for federal tax purposes as partnerships and Subchapter S corporations. Topics include the federal tax classification of business organizations; the formation, operation and termination of partnerships; sales and exchanges of partnership interests; operating and liquidating distributions by a partnership; and the federal tax rules governing eligibility for and operation as a Subchapter S corporation.
Representation in Mediation
View detailsTwo semester hours credit. Offered periodically.
This course first provides an in-depth study of negotiation because mediation is essentially a facilitated negotiation. Next, students will be exposed to mediation theory and process in order to gain an understanding of what is important while representing clients in the mediation session itself. Pre-mediation matters will be addressed including preparing cases and clients for mediation. The course will also cover advocacy during the mediation process. All students will have the opportunity to play the role of advocate in several in-class mediations. The goal of this interactive course is for students to develop the essential problem-solving skills for effective client representation in the mediation process.
Stage 3
Consider earlier courses plus one or more from below
Estate Planning
View detailsThree semester hours credit. Normally offered once each academic year.
Prerequisites: Federal Income Taxation; Wills, Trusts & Estates; Estate & Gift Taxation.
Deals with practical aspects of estate planning, with the following major objectives: first, necessity for counsel to possess thorough understanding of client’s objectives relating to family and property, size and composition of client’s assets and liabilities, and for counsel to address practicality of drafting instruments to accomplish those objectives under state law; second, planning of testamentary documents for net estates expected not to exceed the applicable exclusion amount; third, planning of testamentary documents for larger estates, including use of bypass trusts and marital deduction trusts as well as including generation-skipping planning, and use of charitable gifts; fourth, consideration of reduction of size of probate estate through intervivos transactions designed to accomplish objectives of client; fifth, use of postmortem options; and sixth, review and consideration of selected types of transactions currently in use by the practicing bar.
Interviewing & Counseling
View detailsTwo semester hours credit. Graded honors pass, pass, low pass, or fail. Normally offered as an intersession course.
Examination of the attorney-client relationship, including establishing the relationship in the initial interview; billing arrangements; the importance of continuing communications; case analysis; decision-making; counseling with the client as to case development and strategy; preparation of the client for settlement negotiations as well as trial; termination of the relationship, including the collection of fees. Students will conduct several mock interviews throughout the course.
Taxation–Federal Procedure
View detailsTwo semester hours credit. Offered periodically.
Prerequisites: Federal Income Taxation.
Organization of the IRS, requests for rulings and determination letters, claims for refunds, audits, deficiency assessments, administrative settlement of tax disputes, tax litigation, tax collection, interest and civil penalties.