Your state’s pack. New issues arrive periodically on Mondays. Bookmark it. I built this for the Arkansas T&E solo who knows Title 28 (Arkansas’s own Wills, Estates and Fiduciary Relationships code) cold but still loses an afternoon a week hunting the current homestead rules, the Medicaid (DHS / ARChoices) waiver posture, whether the latest Arkansas Supreme Court ethics rule changes how you scope an engagement, or whether a recent Arkansas Court of Appeals decision just moved the law on capacity, undue influence, or a trustee’s duties. What’s below is what mattered in Arkansas 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 Arkansas 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 Court’s order, In re Creation of Administrative Order No. 25 (2025 Ark. 117, June 5, 2025) governs generative-AI use with court data: it bars AOC staff, clerks, and CourtConnect holders from exposing internal court data to generative AI, and cross-references the Rules of Professional Conduct and the Code of Judicial Conduct.
For an Arkansas solo, the direct lesson is data discipline: anything you draw from court systems or matter files is not something to paste into a public AI tool. The order signals how seriously the Arkansas judiciary treats AI-and-confidentiality, and it pairs with the RPC amendments below to put AI output squarely inside your own professional responsibility. Set a firm rule against feeding court or client data to consumer AI.
In re Creation of Admin. Order No. 25 (AI), 2025 Ark. 117 (June 5, 2025) · arcourts.gov · Admin. Order No. 25
Per the Court’s per curiam, 2025 Ark. 115 amended Rule of Professional Conduct 5.3 and the Preamble to place the output of generative AI within the supervising attorney’s responsibility, with competence and confidentiality reinforced through Rule 1.6.
For an Arkansas solo, this closes any argument that AI is a black box you aren’t answerable for: under amended RPC 5.3, AI output is treated like the work of a nonlawyer assistant you supervise, so you own its accuracy and its confidentiality posture. Verify AI-generated citations against the primary source every time, and keep client-confidential information out of tool inputs — the rule now makes both your direct responsibility.
In re Amendments to the Ark. Rules of Prof’l Conduct, 2025 Ark. 115 · OPINIONS.ARCOURTS.GOV · 2025 Ark. 115
Per the per curiam, Arkansas DHS v. April Ward and Minor Child, 2025 Ark. 217 (No. CV-25-758, Dec. 11, 2025), the Court issued a show-cause order to an attorney ad litem over defective, suspected AI-generated citations, requiring her to submit the full text of every cited opinion and statute plus an explanatory affidavit under Ark. R. App. P.–Civ. 11(d).
For an Arkansas solo, this is the rules above with teeth: the Court will demand the full text of every authority you cite and an affidavit explaining defective citations — a direct sanction risk for anyone who files AI output without checking it. The practical safeguard is simple and now mandatory in spirit: read and verify each cited opinion and statute before it goes in a filing, every time.
Ark. DHS v. April Ward and Minor Child, 2025 Ark. 217 (No. CV-25-758, Dec. 11, 2025) (per curiam) · OPINIONS.ARCOURTS.GOV · 2025 Ark. 217
Decisions that bind an Arkansas practitioner — Arkansas’s appellate courts and the federal courts covering Arkansas, including the U.S. Eighth 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 2001 property settlement agreement obligated the husband to execute a will leaving his twin sons the first $200,000 of his estate, and barred gifts to third parties made to shrink the estate below that. He remarried in 2002, never made the will, and died in 2020 with every asset he held passing outside probate — largely into a joint revocable trust with his second wife or into jointly titled property. The sons sued the widow individually and as trustee, plus the estate’s administrator, for breach of contract, unjust enrichment, and a constructive trust. The circuit court granted the widow summary judgment on the ground that she was not a party to the PSA and so could not have breached it, and that without a breach by her there could be no unjust enrichment. The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded on both points, following Orsini and the Eighth Circuit’s Crain v. Crain: a non-party who holds the property is still a proper defendant in equity, and “estate” in a contract to make a will means everything the decedent owned or controlled at death, not the probate estate alone.
This is the case to reach for when a client’s divorce decree contains a will-obligation clause — and the case to think about before you help that client title everything jointly or fund a joint revocable trust. Non-probate transfers do not defeat the obligation; the court said flatly that reading “estate” as the probate estate would let the obligor circumvent the clause at will. Three drafting consequences follow. Ask about prior PSAs at intake, every time, and read the actual decree rather than the client’s summary of it. If you represent the second spouse, understand that assets she brought to the marriage are not automatically safe — they are subject to tracing, and the burden of sorting them out lands in her lap on remand. And if you represent the intended beneficiaries, the practical lever is the schedule of assets: a constructive trust follows property through changes in form only so far as it stays identifiable and traceable.
Michael Sanders and Mitchell Sanders v. Susan Sanders, individually and as Trustee of the Emmett Earlton Sanders, Jr., and Susan Carver Sanders Joint Revocable Trust, 2026 Ark. App. 270, No. CV-25-56 (Ark. Ct. App. Apr. 29, 2026) — reversed and remanded. · OPINIONS.ARCOURTS.GOV · official opinion
Twin sons sued their late father’s widow — individually and as trustee of the couple’s joint revocable trust — to enforce a divorce property-settlement agreement (PSA) in which the father had promised to leave them the first $200,000 of his ‘estate.’ He never made the will, and at his death nearly everything passed outside probate through joint title and the trust, leaving the probate estate empty. The circuit court granted the widow summary judgment because she was not a party to the PSA and so could not have ‘breached’ it. The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded: the sons’ claim is not that the widow breached the contract but that she holds property impressed with their superior contractual rights, which a constructive trust can reach to prevent unjust enrichment.
Three things for the Arkansas T&E desk. One: a contract to make a will (Ark. Code Ann. § 28-24-101) construes ‘estate’ to mean everything the decedent owned or controlled at death — not just the probate estate — so joint tenancy, beneficiary designations, and revocable-trust funding do not defeat the promise (following Crain v. Crain, 72 F.4th 269 (8th Cir. 2023), and Orsini). Two: a third-party beneficiary can pursue a constructive trust against a non-party who merely holds the assets, so name the holder, not just the estate. Three: the remedy turns on tracing — assets must be identified and traceable, and property the survivor brought into the marriage may be carved out — so build the asset schedule early.
Sanders v. Sanders, 2026 Ark. App. 270 (Ark. Ct. App. Apr. 29, 2026) — official neutral citation, Arkansas Judiciary published opinion.
This slot holds the next significant trusts-and-estates or estate-recovery decision from Arkansas’s appellate courts or the federal courts covering Arkansas. 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 Arkansas for the T&E solo with Arkansas Medicaid (ARChoices) clients: the developments from the Arkansas Bar Association, the Arkansas Supreme Court, and the Arkansas DHS Medicaid program 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.