Your state’s pack. New issues arrive periodically on Mondays. Bookmark it. I built this for the Alabama T&E solo who knows Title 43, Ch. 8 (Alabama’s own Probate Code) cold but still loses an afternoon a week hunting the current homestead-allowance number, the Medicaid (Alabama Medicaid Agency) LTC-waiver posture, whether the latest Alabama State Bar ethics opinion changes how you scope an engagement, or whether a recent Alabama Court of Civil Appeals decision just moved the law on capacity, undue influence, or a trustee’s duties. What’s below is what mattered in Alabama 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 several weeks that I think actually matter to an Alabama 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 State Treasurer’s Ala. Code §43-8-116 CPI table now carries the July 1, 2026 triennial adjustment: homestead allowance $18,800 → $20,475; family allowance $18,800 → $20,475; exempt personal property $9,400 → $10,225. Because HB164’s small-estate summary-distribution ceiling floats on the combined allowances, that cap moves with it (combined base $47,000 → $51,175). Under the last cycle’s mechanics each adjustment applied to claims arising on or after April 1 of the following year — the Treasurer’s page does not restate that gloss, so confirm the application date before relying on the new figure for a claim filed today.
Every Alabama small-estate intake this year turns on which figure is operative. Update your templates and client worksheets with both numbers — the posted $20,475/$10,225 cycle and the prior $18,800/$9,400 cycle — and flag the April-1 application question in any summary-distribution filing near the boundary.
Ala. Code §43-8-116 CPI adjustments, Alabama State Treasurer (posted eff. July 1, 2026) · treasury.alabama.gov
Per the enrolled bill, SB41 (2026; effective Oct. 1, 2026) amends Ala. Code § 43-8-253 so a person convicted of elder abuse, neglect, or financial exploitation of the decedent is treated as having predeceased the decedent — cut off from taking under a will, by intestacy, by right of survivorship, or by beneficiary designation.
For an Alabama solo, this is a new tool and a new diligence point. When a contest or administration involves a caregiver-beneficiary with an abuse or exploitation conviction tied to the decedent, the bar operates like the slayer rule — the conviction, not a separate civil finding, drives disqualification across will, intestacy, survivorship, and beneficiary-designation channels. Flag the conviction question at intake on contested estates, because it can reorder who takes.
Ala. SB41 (2026 Reg. Sess.), enrolled · amending Ala. Code § 43-8-253 · alison.legislature.state.al.us · SB41-enr
Per the opinion, Alabama State Bar Formal Opinion 2026-01 (May 2026) is the state’s first formal ethics opinion on generative AI. It imposes no new duties but recontextualizes existing ones — competence (including technological competence), confidentiality, supervision, candor, reasonable fees, and client communication — for AI-assisted work, endorses ABA Formal Opinion 512, and confirms the lawyer remains fully responsible for AI work product.
For an Alabama solo using AI-assisted drafting or research, this is the controlling in-state ethics frame: you are fully accountable for AI output, so verification, confidentiality screening of inputs, and a fee basis you can explain are now the diligence baseline. If you have adopted any AI tool, read FO 2026-01 against your current intake, confidentiality, and billing practices and close any gap before it surfaces in a matter.
Ala. State Bar Formal Opinion 2026-01 (May 2026) · alabar.org · FO 2026-01
Decisions that bind an Alabama practitioner — Alabama’s appellate courts and the federal courts covering Alabama, including the U.S. Eleventh 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 Jefferson County probate judge entered a standing administrative order directing an immediate “forensic accounting” of every ward’s estate previously administered by two attorneys — roughly 146 guardianship and conservatorship matters — and approved the accounting fees for payment out of each ward’s estate. The order issued on no petition, was docketed in no proceeding, named no protected person, and came without notice, hearing, or findings. The attorneys petitioned the circuit court for mandamus under § 6-6-640; the circuit court dismissed, reasoning that a 1971 local act giving the Jefferson Probate Court equity jurisdiction concurrent with the circuit courts had stripped its own supervisory jurisdiction. The Supreme Court reversed: the local act is cumulative only, speaks solely to where appeals lie, and never mentions supervisory writs. Under § 12-11-30(4) and Ala. Const. 2022, Art. VI, § 142(b), the circuit court retains general superintendence over the probate court, which stays an inferior court notwithstanding shared equity jurisdiction.
If your guardianship and conservatorship work runs through a probate court that holds concurrent equity jurisdiction, this restores the remedy you actually need when a probate order is entered outside any case — the circuit court can still be asked for the writ, and the concurrent-jurisdiction argument no longer closes that door. Two practice points travel with it. First, a fee charged to a ward’s estate by administrative fiat, with no petition and no hearing, is exactly the kind of order this decision reopens to review. Second, note what the Court did not disturb: appeals from that probate court still run where the local act and Jett v. Carter put them. Pick the right vehicle — appeal for judgments, mandamus for the order that never belonged to a case.
I. Ripon Britton, Jr., and Gregory H. Hawley v. Yashiba Glenn Blanchard, No. SC-2026-0249 (Ala. Aug. 21, 2026) — Supreme Court of Alabama, reversed and remanded with instructions. · PUBLICPORTAL-API.ALAPPEALS.GOV · official opinion
Grandchildren sued their uncle over his conduct as trustee of two living trusts, alleging undue influence over the amendments that cut them out, lack of capacity, breach of trust, and tortious interference with an inheritance expectancy. The trial court granted the trustee summary judgment on limitations grounds. On appeal the Supreme Court never reached the merits: appellants’ counsel had filed briefs whose authorities were, in the Court’s words, largely misquoted or nonexistent — AI hallucinations. Opposing counsel flagged them in the appellee’s brief; counsel apologized in a reply-brief footnote and cited more nonexistent cases in the very next sentence. The Court dismissed the appeal as a Rule 38 sanction, denied leave to file supplemental briefs, ordered counsel to pay $17,200 in the appellee’s fees and costs plus double costs to the Court, barred him under Rule 25A from filing anything further without a co-signature from an attorney in good standing, and referred him to the Alabama State Bar.
Read this one as a T&E lawyer using AI, because that is what it is about. The clients lost their appeal on the merits they never got to argue — the sanction fell on the lawyer, but the forfeiture fell on them. Justice Cook’s special writing draws the line the profession is converging on: using AI is not the ethical failure; shipping its output unverified is, and he goes further, suggesting that at some point failing to use AI at all may itself implicate Rule 1.1 competence. The operative discipline is boring and non-negotiable — every citation in every filing gets pulled up and read before it goes out the door, by you, in the reporter or the court’s own database. And the Court flagged that several similar cases are already pending before it, so this is a line of authority, not an outlier.
Laurie Ibach and Mark Stewart v. Bruce Stewart, individually and as Trustee of the Betty L. Stewart Living Trust and the Edward T. Stewart Living Trust, No. SC-2025-0106 (Ala. Apr. 24, 2026) — Supreme Court of Alabama; appeal dismissed, sanctions imposed. · PUBLICPORTAL-API.ALAPPEALS.GOV · official opinion
This week in Alabama for the T&E solo with Alabama Medicaid clients: the developments from the Alabama State Bar and the Alabama Medicaid Agency 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.