Court Supervision of the Administration of Estates and Guardianships

In June 1958 The Probate Committee of the King County Superior Court, under the chairmanship of Judge Eugene A. Wright, initiated an experiment in court supervision of probate administration. The primary purpose of the program is to insure that persons serving as personal representatives of the estates of decedents, or as guardians of the estates of minors and incompetent persons, are properly and expeditiously performing the duties of their offices, as prescribed by law. The writer of this Comment, a third-year law student at the University of Washington, was employed on a part-time basis to work for the committee on this program as a probate records checker. It is the purpose here (1) briefly to outline the operation of the program and to relate its results to date, (2) to suggest certain conclusions with particular emphasis on the question of the respective responsibilities of court and counsel in supervising probate administration, and (3) to comment briefly on several legal problems involved in the administration of estates and guardianships which the records checking program has revealed to be apparently misunderstood by more than a few practicing attorneys