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Hugh Duff Robertson
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24 Sep, 2017 by Anonymous
Hugh outright verbally lied to me before I hired him. We were the only 2 people in our only face-to-face meeting. I came to him with a trust instrument I had managed to get via a previous lawyer from the 2 trustees (with a history of being untrustworthy to me) of a standard abc trust created by my parents in 1989. My father, pretty much the sole breadwinner, died in 1992. I had heard the trust included some individual family money my father had inherited in 1989. The trust instrument didn’t include schedules, and the trustees chose not to send a record of assignments or disbursements, even though requested.
Hugh told me verbally that the law was “black and white” in this area, that the trustees HAD to provide the financial accounting of what was assigned, what was left, and more-or-less what was disbursed. He said we would have to resend the first letter sent 1.5 years before, and that, if the trustees still refused to cooperate, we would petition the court to order the information and then move to ask for their removal as trustees (assuming further lack of accounting). Then I would be named trustee and we would subpoena the missing documents. He said it was possible there was little money left, but that I would at least know the true financial info. I paid $5G. He asked me to research additional addresses online and to provide the emails 1 trustee had written outlining various loans/gifts made to the 2nd trustee and non-beneficiaries. (I had found online that making loans to trustees is generally considered to be trust mismanagement.) I sent the addresses/emails. He never commented on those emails, despite me writing him asking whether this was proof of trust mismanagement. Emails filled with lies from the trustees (one disproved by another email I sent to Hugh) followed. There were time extensions requested too, and the number of them was something Hugh contradicted himself about verbally via phone vs email. He phoned I should grant every requested extension, based on what he knew the judge would say once we petitioned the court (which never happened).
Near the end, a lawyer for the trustees wrote that I was NOT entitled to any accounting. Hugh responded there was case-law. She asked for the cases and he refused to provide them.
Finally a trustee-homemade accounting, one that didn’t seem believable considering past spending, came. I emailed Hugh about when were we going to petition the court to get the real info? Hugh refused to directly answer any of my questions. Finally, I googled from another lawyer site that I was NOT entitled to an accounting as a remainder beneficiary for a trust made before 2007! Wow!
We then had a 2nd phone call (after hiring). He said that maybe the money my father inherited hadn’t been put in the trust. Maybe he died “intestate,” which meant my mother and offspring would divide it equally. (Talk about out of “left-field!”) He asked if I had been notified of any probate- no. He said he would do a deed search on the marital home- no, wait, the other lawyer did that. Hugh never explained what purpose that had. He kept repeating himself, moving away from the speaker, and interrupting my questions. Afterward I thought- wait, isn’t that pretty much the POINT of trusts-to AVOID probate and estate taxes, which my father hated? Hugh wanted $1500 more to do a probate/will search. I was feeling misgiving, but after even MORE googling and remembering the word “executor” having once been used, I thought maybe I could get SOME idea of what went into that trust, perhaps through a “pour-over” will. A month later Hugh had emailed nothing about the house deed, nor probate nor will. I asked for an update and said he never directly answered any of my questions. I got a rude email saying I looked for him to confirm a personal diatribe against a trustee and he wasn’t going to represent me anymore- like that was even an issue anymore! LOL Net result: $6500 poorer due to Hugh, and I have none of the promised info!
23 Oct, 2011 by Anonymous
He was more concerned with making money for himself and his firm than he was in taking care of us.
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