Course: Drafting a Common-Law Asset Protection Trust
A Self-Directed Course
I am so glad I joined this class! First lesson was so informative and interesting. Looking forward to the rest. Thanks!
- Beverly S.
Course Description
The goal of this course is to walk the student through the fundamental steps of drafting a common-law asset protection trust by, first, building a skeletally trust indenture, using the few indispensable features of the common-law trust; then, second, by fleshing out the trust indenture, choosing from among optional features those that meet specific asset protection needs; and finally, third, by building into the trust indenture flexibility, while avoiding ambiguity and providing for foreseeable changes in law and even lawlessness—throughout the course, encouraging the student to reflect upon uses of the use (the ancient Anglo-Saxon name for the canon-law trust).
The prerecorded course is presented in ?? sessions.
The course includes assignments delivered to registered participants by email.
Those who complete the course will receive a Certificate of Completion.
In appreciation of a suggested donation of $175 (or more).
Course Background
In this present world of growing lawlessness with its ever-present handmaiden of unpredictability—among the powers-that-be, among the courts, and among buzzard-like men lurking for an easy mark—private property can become a target.
Do nothing to protect assets, get no asset protection, lose your assets.
Do something to protect assets, and you stand a better chance to protect what is yours. So it is said, It is easier to get assets than it is to keep them.
The common-law trust is the asset-protection tool available only in the few common-law countries.
The trust, says common-law historian Wm. Frederick Maitland, is the highest achievement of the fortuitous wedding of common-law with equity. Unlike the civil law of the city, our common law of the land rejects the unlawful features outside its tradition, while impressing into productive use the lawful features. Thus, centuries ago, our common-law trust arose in use. In fact, because of its usefulness in protecting assets from predatory litigants, it was not called the trust in its earlier days, but called the use.
Bureaucrats have tried to ignore it, English kings have warred against it, predatory litigants have been stymied by it, judges have been befuddled with it, and it remains to many, says professor Rounds, as mysterious as the doctrine of the Trinity. Nevertheless, because all of our common-law tradition quickens under the blows of adversity and feeds on fact before logic, the common-law trust thrives in our common-law country.