Your state’s pack. New issues arrive periodically on Mondays. Bookmark it. I built this for the Louisiana T&E solo who knows the Louisiana Civil Code’s succession rules (Book III) cold but still loses an afternoon a week hunting the current homestead figure, the Louisiana Medicaid / Healthy Louisiana estate-recovery posture, whether the LSBA’s latest ethics guidance changes how you scope an engagement, or whether a recent Louisiana Court of Appeal decision just moved the law on capacity, undue influence, or a trustee’s duties. What’s below is what mattered in Louisiana 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 Louisiana 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.
Per the Louisiana Legislature, Acts 2025, No. 30 repealed Civil Code article 1577 and rewrote the notarial-testament formalities into article 1576, simplifying the signature and date requirements and supplying a self-proving affidavit mechanism. The change is effective August 1, 2025.
For a Louisiana T&E solo, this is a direct change to every notarial will you draft: the execution ceremony, the page-signature ritual that historically voided wills, and your drafting checklist all key off the new article 1576, not the repealed 1577. Update your will templates and your attestation script, and re-evaluate how you assess older wills for validity. Read article 1576 against the primary source before the next signing.
Louisiana Legislature · Acts 2025, No. 30 (C.C. art. 1576) · LEGIS.LA.GOV
This slot holds the week’s second Louisiana-specific development — a bill with a verifiable committee vote on the legislature’s record, a newly-issued LSBA ethics opinion, a Louisiana bar section notice, or a Medicaid agency bulletin. The orchestrator populates it from primary sources and the tr-cite below carries the source URL so the reader can verify before using it with a client.
[Per-state why-it-matters paragraph lands here once the headline item is populated.]
[Primary-source citation with URL]
Per the Louisiana Legislature, Act 250 added authenticity-verification, disclosure, and pretrial-challenge procedures for AI-generated or artificially manipulated exhibits, with contempt exposure for offering falsified evidence. It is effective August 1, 2025.
For a Louisiana T&E solo, this lands in any litigated succession or capacity dispute: if a deed, a video of a testator, a recording, or a signature exhibit could have been AI-generated or manipulated, there is now a disclosure-and-challenge track to invoke — and contempt exposure for putting fabricated evidence in front of the court. Know the procedure before you offer or challenge digital evidence in a contested matter.
Louisiana Legislature · Act 250 (HB 178, 2025) · LEGIS.LA.GOV
Decisions that bind a Louisiana practitioner — Louisiana’s appellate courts and the federal courts covering Louisiana, including the U.S. Fifth 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.
A former independent executor — the decedent’s son and a legatee — sought a preliminary injunction to stop the successor executor (a trust company) from selling two high-value Impressionist paintings he had kept in his own possession, arguing he had validly allocated them to himself early in the succession without a judgment of possession. The Second Circuit affirmed the denial of the injunction. The trial court had pointedly asked why executors seek judgments of possession ‘if they can just give stuff away,’ noting the paintings — appraised over $1 million — could offset millions in estate debt.
For Louisiana succession practice: an independent executor’s informal distribution of significant assets to himself or other legatees, without a judgment of possession, is vulnerable — a successor representative can move to pull those assets back into the estate and liquidate them to pay debts. Counsel executors to obtain judgments of possession before treating estate property as distributed, and to keep current accountings and descriptive lists.
Succession of Miriam Mandel Sklar, No. 56,771-CA (La. Ct. App. 2d Cir. Mar. 27, 2026) — official Louisiana Second Circuit Court of Appeal opinion.
This slot holds the next significant trusts-and-estates or estate-recovery decision from Louisiana’s appellate courts or the federal courts covering Louisiana. The lane reads each opinion before it lands here, and reads-and-discards criminal, family, commercial/LLC-fiduciary, and tax matters as not T&E. When the trailing window has no further ruling, this row says so plainly rather than inventing one.
Nothing further to re-paper from the bench this period; controlling authority unchanged.
Official reporter · court · date — populated when the next verified ruling lands.
This week in Louisiana for the T&E solo with Louisiana Medicaid clients: the developments from the Louisiana State Bar Association and the Louisiana Department of Health (Medicaid) 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.