{"id":234,"date":"2026-04-08T15:36:55","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T15:36:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sherin.com\/law-firm-defense\/?p=234"},"modified":"2026-04-21T15:30:43","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T15:30:43","slug":"recent-decisions-on-attorney-liability-to-non-clients-in-estate-planning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sherin.com\/law-firm-defense\/2026\/04\/08\/recent-decisions-on-attorney-liability-to-non-clients-in-estate-planning\/","title":{"rendered":"Recent Decisions on Attorney Liability to Non-Clients in Estate Planning"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Estate planning is, by its nature, a discipline where the attorney serves one person who hopes to benefit others. As a result, the attorney-client relationship has consequences radiating out to people who were never parties to it. While the client sits across the desk, gives instructions, and signs documents, the beneficiaries generally learn what those documents say only after the client is gone. That structural asymmetry inexorably leads to a thorny legal question, namely: when the client has died and something may have gone wrong, can a disappointed beneficiary sue the attorney? This question goes to the heart of where an attorney\u2019s loyalty lies, what an attorney can reasonably be expected to anticipate, and how far professional liability should extend into relationships the attorney never undertook.<\/p>\n<p>The New Jersey Supreme Court\u2019s January 2026 decision in Christakos v. Boyadjis, 348 A.3d 966 (2026), in which the court rejected a non-client\u2019s malpractice claim against an estate planning attorney, provides a natural starting point for examining this issue. Christakos reflects a broader trend in recent decisions from California, New York, Missouri, Alaska, New Mexico, and Connecticut. The cases examined here show that courts that have largely\u2014but not exclusively\u2014continued to garrison protective barriers around the estate planning attorney-client relationship.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sherin.com\/law-firm-defense\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/04\/CRB-NJLJ-Recent-Decisions-on-Attorney-Liability-to-Non-Clients-in-Estate-Planning.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Click here to continue reading a PDF of the article.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.com\/njlawjournal\/2026\/03\/30\/recent-decisions-on-attorney-liability-to-non-clients-in-estate-planning\/?slreturn=20260408112738\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Click here to continue reading from the\u00a0<em>New Jersey Law Journal<\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Estate planning is, by its nature, a discipline where the attorney serves one person who hopes to benefit others. As a result, the attorney-client relationship has consequences radiating out to people who were never parties to it. While the client sits across the desk, gives instructions, and signs documents, the beneficiaries generally learn what those [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":236,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Recent Decisions on Attorney Liability to Non-Clients in Estate Planning - Law Firm Defense<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sherin.com\/law-firm-defense\/2026\/04\/08\/recent-decisions-on-attorney-liability-to-non-clients-in-estate-planning\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Recent Decisions on Attorney Liability to Non-Clients in Estate Planning - Law Firm Defense\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Estate planning is, by its nature, a discipline where the attorney serves one person who hopes to benefit others. 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