Your state’s pack. New issues arrive periodically on Mondays. Bookmark it. I built this for the Virginia T&E solo who knows Title 64.2 (Virginia’s own decedents-estates code) cold but still loses an afternoon a week hunting the current homestead number, the Cardinal Care / CCC Plus waiver posture, whether the latest VSB opinion changes how you scope an engagement, or whether a recent Court of Appeals of Virginia decision just moved the law on capacity, undue influence, or a trustee’s duties. What’s below is what mattered in Virginia 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 Virginia 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 Virginia LIS, HB 133 (electronic execution of estate-planning documents; codifies the Uniform Electronic Wills Act) passed the House 98-Y 0-N on February 3, 2026, was referred to the Senate Committee for Courts of Justice on February 4, and on February 25 the committee failed to report (defeated) it, 6-Y 8-N 1-A. The 2026 General Assembly adjourned sine die March 14. The bill’s status is Failed.
For a Virginia T&E solo, the operative posture is unchanged: wills are still executed the wet-signature way under Va. Code § 64.2-403 — testator signature plus two competent witnesses — and Virginia does not authorize fully electronic or remote-online will execution. Don’t let a client, or an out-of-state e-will vendor, assume an electronically executed will is valid here; a will executed in reliance on this bill would be exposed. Re-file the question for the 2027 session.
Virginia LIS · HB 133 (2026 Reg. Sess.) · lis.virginia.gov/bill-details/20261/HB133
LEO 1901, Reasonable Fees and the Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence, was approved by the Supreme Court of Virginia on November 24, 2025 (effective immediately). Applying Rule 1.5, it holds that time-based (hourly) fees may bill only the actual time spent, but a lawyer is not required to reduce a non-hourly (flat or value-based) fee solely because AI made the work faster — the skill to prompt, verify, and integrate AI output, and the results obtained, remain compensable value. Virginia here expressly departs from ABA Formal Opinion 512 and North Carolina 2024 FEO 1.
If you use AI-assisted drafting, you may keep a reasonable flat or value fee even when AI cut your hours — you need not discount for speed alone — but Rule 1.5(b) requires you to adequately explain the basis of the fee to the client, and that explanation matters most precisely when your time on the matter drops sharply. Hourly billing still must reflect only actual hours worked.
Va. Legal Ethics Opinion 1901, Reasonable Fees and the Use of Generative AI, approved by the Supreme Court of Virginia Nov. 24, 2025 · official opinion: vacourts.gov
Va. Code § 34-4 was doubled from $25,000 to $50,000 by 2024 c. 656. The personal-property cap is $5,000 ($10,000 if the householder is 65 or older), with an additional $500 per dependent. CPI indexing of the figure arrives April 2027. (Direct LIS code fetch, server-rendered — Procedure B.)
Two places this bites immediately: bankruptcy-exemption schedules filed in the Eastern and Western Districts of Virginia, where the homestead deed is the operative instrument, and homestead-deed filing practice itself — circuit-clerk record indexes still carry historical filings at the old number, a trap for anyone copying from a prior file. Check the interaction with § 34-26 and § 34-4.1 before relying on any single figure.
Va. Code § 34-4 · law.lis.virginia.gov · § 34-4
Decisions that bind a Virginia practitioner — Virginia’s appellate courts and the federal courts covering Virginia, including the U.S. Fourth 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.
The Court of Appeals resolved an intra-family dispute touching estate interests in an unpublished July 7 opinion — the first new T&E-relevant decision from Virginia’s intermediate court in this pack’s window since Teel v. Teel.
Unpublished but current — Virginia’s appellate courts remain active on family-estate disputes; where your matter parallels the facts, the reasoning is citable persuasive authority under Rule 5A:1(f).
Schwab v. Schwab, Rec. No. 2184-25-3, 2026 Va. App. LEXIS 372 (Va. Ct. App. July 7, 2026)
A husband’s will declared that his wife had deserted and abandoned the marriage years earlier and left her nothing, giving his entire estate to his brother. The wife, still legally married, sought her elective share of the augmented estate. After a bench trial, the circuit court found she had abandoned the marital relationship and forfeited her elective-share interest under Code § 64.2-308.14(E); the Court of Appeals affirmed in a published opinion. The evidence — a years-long separation by mutual agreement and an open, public romantic relationship with another man — supported the abandonment finding.
For Virginia practice, the elective share is not automatic for a still-married surviving spouse: under Code § 64.2-308.14(E), desertion or abandonment of the marriage forfeits it. Spouses who separate informally without divorcing should understand that conduct — long separation plus a new public relationship — can cost the survivor the elective share. When drafting for a client in a fractured-but-undissolved marriage, document the desertion; when advising a surviving spouse, assess abandonment exposure before claiming the share.
Teel v. Teel, 86 Va. App. 227 (Nov. 18, 2025) — published Court of Appeals of Virginia opinion.
This week in Virginia for the T&E solo with Cardinal Care / CCC Plus clients: the developments from the Virginia State Bar, the Trusts and Estates Section, and DMAS Medicaid memos 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.