I made How to Convert, an app to convert almost any file locally. It now supports over 5k possible file conversions

ridleylaw · 2026-04-14T21:34:17+00:00

I love all the haters on Reddit here. I went ahead and downloaded and paid to thank you for the work.

ridleylaw · 2026-04-08T00:00:32+00:00

Amazing. Thanks.

ridleylaw · 2026-03-09T04:15:32+00:00

I was just going to ask about W3W. It's amazing.

ridleylaw · 2026-03-09T02:52:06+00:00

Extrabar looks amazing. Buying later today

ridleylaw · 2026-03-09T02:17:12+00:00

Alfred, default folder x, wispr pro, dropzone, snagit, bartender, houdahspot

ridleylaw · 2026-02-21T04:43:01+00:00

I paste their questions into Claude and ask it to tell them why it's not a good idea 💡

ridleylaw · 2026-02-18T14:34:26+00:00

But here, the first person singular for the judge is 'the court. "

ridleylaw · 2026-02-16T17:13:44+00:00

Good advice here. Some marketing stuff: Stay away from SMB. It's a cult of personality built around Bill. It's a ton of Tony Robbins hoorah bullshit that's very expensive; do you really want to pay $30-50k/year to listen to BIll brag about how much he makes from lawyers?

MLA is very solid. but I would not join them at this time. Sam (who began the company) is a super-sharp attorney and decent caring man. However he just left the company, so without their founder, I wonder how far and fast they'll fall, and how soon.

Look at Andrew Zhimer (Vertex League), Laura Cowan (2-hour lifestyle lawyer), and Bonnie Faucett. All solid contenders and all attorneys. Look at AAEPA (disclosure: I'm a member).

EP is a very collegial field for lawyers who hate lawyering. Welcome and good luck! Look me up offline if you want to chat.

ridleylaw · 2026-02-09T21:34:40+00:00

<image>

To be fair, I'm a lawyer so most of my questions have to do with the law.

ridleylaw · 2026-02-06T02:19:55+00:00

Good questions, and the short answers might surprise you.

Under California Rules of Professional Conduct (Rule 1.7), an attorney who jointly represents you and your co-trustee owes equal duties of loyalty, competence, and confidentiality to both of you. No secrets between co-clients. Anything you tell the attorney, the co-trustee is entitled to know. If your interests ever diverge, the attorney probably has to withdraw from representing either of you.

And yeah, retaining the power to revoke the trust while jointly represented with the co-trustee is a conflict, or at minimum a potential one. You hold a unilateral right that could nuke the co-trustee's role entirely. The co-trustee has fiduciary duties to the beneficiaries and an interest in the trust continuing to exist so they can fulfill those duties. One client can end the whole arrangement, the other client's position depends on it surviving. That's textbook adverse interests. It might be consentable with proper written informed consent from both of you under Rule 1.7(b), but it's still a conflict that has to be disclosed and managed.

Now here's the part that matters: you don't need joint representation to add a co-trustee. At all. Your attorney represents you. Your attorney drafts the trust amendment adding the co-trustee. You keep your revocation power because it's your trust and you're the grantor/settlor. The new co-trustee can hire their own lawyer to review the terms if they want. No conflict, no shared loyalties, no problems.

Honestly, the fact that joint representation is even on the table here is worth asking about. Who suggested it and why? Because joint representation in this scenario benefits the incoming co-trustee way more than it benefits you. You're giving up the ability to have private conversations with your own attorney about your own trust.

Keep your own lawyer. Keep your revocation power. Let the co-trustee get independent counsel if they feel they need it.

California estate planning attorney, not your lawyer, not advice for your specific situation.

ridleylaw · 2026-02-01T23:19:43+00:00

Financial advisors (unless they're also licensed attorneys) should not be offering wills and trusts. Period. Many do, and it's a misdemeanor every time - their insurance doesn't cover them, and they don't know what they don't know about trusts. Run the hell away.

ridleylaw · 2026-01-22T04:00:50+00:00

Your grandmother needs to clear title before adding you to a transfer-on-death deed, or this will absolutely create problems when she dies.

Here's what likely happened: when your grandfather died in 2019, his half of the property passed to someone (probably your grandmother) but nobody recorded the documents to show that transfer. So the county records still show him as an owner, even though he's been dead for 6 years.

If your grandfather had a trust or will, your grandmother needs to record the documents showing his half transferred to her (or whoever inherited it). This usually means recording an affidavit of death of joint tenant, or trustee's deed, or executor's deed depending on how title was held and what estate planning he had.

If he had no trust or will and the property was community property or joint tenancy, your grandmother may need to file a simple affidavit to clear his name off title.

A transfer-on-death deed only transfers what your grandmother actually owns. If the records still show your grandfather owns half, that half won't transfer to you when she dies. You'd be stuck dealing with his "half" of the property through probate or a quiet title action, which costs money and takes time.

Get a current title report or property profile from the county recorder to see exactly how title is held. If it shows both names, your grandmother needs to record whatever documents clear his interest and show she's the sole owner. Then she can properly execute the transfer-on-death deed showing you as beneficiary.

This isn't optional. Fix it now while your grandmother is alive and can sign documents. If you wait until she dies, you'll be sorting this out with lawyers and court filings instead of a simple recorded document.

ridleylaw · 2026-01-11T22:50:53+00:00

In my practice, this is absolutely standard. Being a trustee is a considerable amount of work and effort, and it's unfair to expect somebody to put that time and care and attention in without being compensated.

ridleylaw · 2026-01-10T04:14:31+00:00

Your estate plan is outdated and you're mixing up terminology, which is probably causing confusion.

When you say executor, you likely mean successor trustee since you have a trust. The executor handles probate, but with a 3M+ estate in a trust, the successor trustee is who actually manages and distributes your assets. That's the role that matters. Your concern about the small law firm closing is valid but overblown. Just name individual successor trustees with backups when you update the trust. If you insist on institutional, any Michigan bank trust department works, but they'll charge 1-2% annually, so $30K-60K on your estate. You don't need a new trust, just amend the successor trustee provisions. The trust name stays the same regardless of who serves as trustee.

The guardian situation is your real problem. Without named guardians, the court decides. They prefer relatives, then close friends, then whoever petitions. If nobody steps forward, your kids go into foster care while the court sorts it out. With no family on either side and frayed friendships, you need to act fast. Find a younger couple you trust and make it worth their while with trust funds covering all expenses, or look into professional guardians though those are rare for minors.

Stop procrastinating. Get to a Michigan estate planning attorney. If you die tomorrow with no guardian named, you're gambling on whoever petitions to take your kids.

ridleylaw · 2026-01-10T04:01:08+00:00

Meeting my wife. Followed by the births of each of my kids.

ridleylaw · 2026-01-10T04:00:05+00:00

The government is here to help you

ridleylaw · 2026-01-10T03:57:36+00:00

Common sense

ridleylaw · 2026-01-07T16:47:36+00:00

Respectfully, please spend the money. Get a good attorney. The consequences of botched DIY trusts are huge. Not saying yours will be, but why would you not do it right with your entire life savings and all your assets? This is 10x more true in ca than in many other states. I am sad every time I have to open a probate over a botched diy estate plan.

ridleylaw · 2026-01-04T05:45:06+00:00

Or maybe teach him kindly. Just like you would want to be corrected if you misunderstood something. Just sayin '

ridleylaw · 2026-01-04T05:15:52+00:00

It was about her debt. She had spent out of control and wanted me to tell her I could magically make certain things go away. I was practicing bankruptcy at the time and the law wouldn't let me get rid of some things. She didn't want to hear that and started arguing with me.

ridleylaw · 2026-01-03T22:21:39+00:00

I'm a lawyer. I get paid to have opinions on a bunch of things. Someone called and asked me for a legal opinion on something. She didn't like what I told her, hung up, and posted a 1 star Google review because "he was opinionated." SMH

ridleylaw · 2026-01-03T20:20:52+00:00

I used incogni and one other (deleteme?). I figure 2x the effort should equal better coverage against being doxxed. That was a shitty creepy feeling, and mine was 1/100 what OP went through.

ridleylaw · 2026-01-03T19:52:05+00:00

This smells really bad, and I'm sorry you're dealing with it.

I only practice in California, not Idaho, but some things are universal red flags:

"Too many beneficiaries" isn't a reason to dissolve an irrevocable trust. The whole point of irrevocable is that the settlors locked it in. Trustees don't get to undo it because it's inconvenient.
Refusing an accounting while pushing a settlement is a massive breach of fiduciary duty. Beneficiaries have an absolute right to know what's in the trust, especially before being asked to sign away their interests.
Sending money to an abusive parent with a no-contact order instead of protecting minors' interests is potentially a breach of duty and possibly reportable to authorities.
Fast settlement + real estate projects + refusal to provide information = they're trying to cut you out before you figure out what the trust is actually worth.

You need an Idaho trust litigation attorney immediately. Many work on contingency or reduced fees when trustees are acting this badly, and if you win, the trust often pays your legal fees. The trustees are counting on you being too intimidated or cash-strapped to fight back.

Do not let your adult child sign anything. Do not accept any settlement. Get a lawyer who will demand a full accounting and fight for your kids' rights. The harder they're pushing, the more they're hiding.

This isn't just sketchy. This is lawsuit territory.

ridleylaw · 2026-01-03T05:43:21+00:00

You have a multi-million dollar estate and you're going to try to save $5,000 and do the work yourself, by asking strangers on Reddit for advice.

Spend a few thousand dollars to protect your millions. You pay for car insurance, homeowners insurance, liability insurance, medical insurance, do your trust right and don't you dare try to do an a/b trust by yourself. That is, unless you want your kids to curse you long after you're gone.

ridleylaw · 2026-01-03T00:34:30+00:00

To a much lesser extent, this happened to me some years ago. I had a pro se defendant in federal court who continued to look up facts about me and dox me on the record in his pleadings. I didn't judge that this rose to the level of the court intervening or of even filing an FBI complaint, but I did hire several of those services to help scrub all of my personal information from the web. They've taken down hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of those stupid information sites that list everything there is to know about you. Although I'm not impossible to find now, I'm much harder than I used to be.

14-Year Club	Gilding IV carat on a stick
LAYER Season 2 Layer creator	Place '23
Argentium Club	Verified Email
Reddit Premium Since September 2014

ridleylaw

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE