Your state’s pack. New issues arrive periodically on Mondays. Bookmark it. I built this for the Hawaii T&E solo who knows the Uniform Probate Code (HRS ch. 560) cold but still loses an afternoon a week hunting the current homestead number, the Med-QUEST / QUEST Integration (DHS Med-QUEST Division) program posture, whether the latest Hawaii bar ethics opinion changes how you scope an engagement, or whether a recent Intermediate Court of Appeals decision just moved the law on capacity, undue influence, or a trustee’s duties. What’s below is what mattered in Hawaii lately — the week’s developments and the recent rulings from the bench.
For licensed attorneys. This pack is general legal information and professional commentary for practicing attorneys — it is not legal advice, does not apply to any specific matter, and creates no attorney-client relationship. Verify every authority against the cited primary source before relying on it with a client. Published by Mike Moss, a Utah-admitted attorney, as an AI-enablement information product; it is not an offer of legal services and is not a representation that the author is admitted to practice in your jurisdiction.
Three developments from the last seven days that I think actually matter to a Hawaii T&E solo. Each one has a read that lands on your practice specifically — and each one comes with the citation so you can verify the detail yourself before you use it with a client.
The official DHS Med-QUEST 2026 MAGI and MAGI-Excepted Income Standards chart sets the figures governing this year’s eligibility determinations. Hawaii runs its Medicaid entirely through Med-QUEST / QUEST Integration managed care, so these are the numbers behind every current eligibility decision.
For a Hawaii T&E solo, the practical point is freshness: any planning memo or eligibility estimate built on the prior year’s standards is now stale. Pull the 2026 chart before you quote a client an income threshold, and remember institutional Medicaid here is share-of-cost — there is no hard income cap to plan around the way income-cap states require.
Hawaii DHS Med-QUEST 2026 MAGI & MAGI-Excepted Income Standards (eff. Jan. 13, 2026) · medquest.hawaii.gov · 2026 income standards chart
In SCMF-24-0000305, the Committee on Artificial Intelligence and the Courts concluded that the existing Hawaii Rules of Professional Conduct and HRCP Rule 11 are adequate to govern attorney use of generative AI, recommending no new rules. There is no formal HSBA AI opinion; this report is the governing instrument.
If you use AI in a Hawaii T&E practice, your duties flow from the rules you already have — competence, candor to the tribunal, and Rule 11 certification — not a new AI-specific regime. The accountability sits with you: a hallucinated citation in a probate filing is a Rule 11 problem regardless of the tool that produced it.
In re Committee on Artificial Intelligence and the Courts, SCMF-24-0000305, Final Report (Haw. filed Dec. 16, 2025) · courts.state.hi.us · Final Report
HRS § 651-92 sets the creditor-execution homestead at $30,000 of FMV for a head of family or someone 65 or older, and $20,000 for others — fixed statutory figures, NOT CPI-indexed, unchanged since L 1978 c 46. That is a separate instrument from the probate homestead allowance in HRS § 560:2-402.
These two are routinely confused, and the confusion produces wrong advice. When you’re analyzing creditor exposure, § 651-92 is the operative figure; when you’re computing family protection in an estate, § 560:2-402 governs. Cite the right one for the right question, and don’t expect the § 651-92 number to move with inflation — it hasn’t since 1978.
HRS § 651-92 · capitol.hawaii.gov · HRS § 651-92
Decisions that bind a Hawaii practitioner — Hawaii’s appellate courts and the federal courts covering Hawaii, including the U.S. Ninth Circuit — read for what actually changes how you draft, advise, and plan. Trusts and estates broadly, not Medicaid alone: wills and capacity, undue influence, fiduciary duty, trust construction, and estate recovery. One read, the holding, and the official cite.
This lane reads each new opinion from Hawaii’s appellate courts and the federal courts covering Hawaii (Ninth Circuit) before anything lands here, and reads-and-discards matters that aren’t trusts-and-estates — criminal, family, commercial/LLC fiduciary, tax, and cases where an estate or trust is only a party. For this period’s trailing window, no new verified trusts-and-estates or estate-recovery decision from those courts was identified in the sources reviewed.
Nothing to re-paper from the bench this period; controlling authority is unchanged. When the next verified T&E ruling issues, it lands here with the holding and the official cite.
Controlling authority unchanged · Hawaii appellate courts · U.S. Ninth Circuit.
This week in Hawaii for the T&E solo with Med-QUEST clients: the developments from the Hawaii State Bar Association (Probate & Estate Planning Section) and the DHS Med-QUEST Division that actually moved your practice this period — each one primary-source verified.
Bar and Medicaid changes land on different schedules and aren’t indexed by practice focus. Every item here was checked against its primary source, with the link, so you can verify before relying on it.